NEW YORK (Dispatches) – Russia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya has denounced the Zionist regime’s occupation of the Golan Heights, saying that the regime’s plans for the expansion of its illegal settlements in the strategic region undermine regional stability.
He made the remarks during a UN Security Council session on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question in New York on Monday.
“Israel’s settlement plans in the occupied Syrian Golan threaten to undermine regional stability,” Nebenzya said.
In 1967, the occupying regime waged a full-scale war against Arab territories, during which it occupied a large area of the Golan and annexed it four years later – a move never recognized by the international community.
In 1973, another war broke out, and a year later, a UN-brokered ceasefire came into force, according to which Tel Aviv and Damascus agreed to separate their troops and create a buffer zone in the Heights. However, the occupying regime has over the past several decades built dozens of illegal settlements in the Golan in defiance of international calls for the regime to stop its illegal construction activities there.
Earlier this year, Deputy Russian Ambassador to the UN Dmitry Polyanskiy said Russia is concerned over Tel Aviv’s announced plans for expanding settlement activity in the occupied Golan Heights.
He said the move directly contradicts the provisions of the 1949 Geneva Convention.
“We stress Russia’s unchanging position, according to which we do not recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights that are an inalienable part of Syria,” Polyanskiy said on February 23.
Last December, the Zionist regime announced that it intends to double the number of its illegal settlements in the Golan, despite an earlier resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly demanding the regime’s full withdrawal from the occupied territory.
Russian relations with the occupying regime have soured since the beginning of Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine. Observers had already predicted that the Russia-Ukraine crisis could put the occupying regime in a difficult position, as the Tel Aviv regime has good relations with both Moscow and Kiev.
Earlier this month, the regime voted in favor of a United Nations General Assembly resolution suspending the Russian Federation’s membership in the UN Human Rights Council.