DAMASCUS (Dispatches) –
Damascus has condemned the Zionist regime’s decision to increase the number of illegal settlers in the occupied part of the Golan Heights, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported on Monday.
According to SANA, the source at the Syrian Foreign Ministry called the statement aggressive and said it stressed “the hostile expansionist nature” of the occupying regime.
In addition, the source reportedly added that the Zionist regime cannot change the legal status of the Syrian Golan as an occupied territory.
Earlier on Monday, Zionist prime minister Naftali Bennett, speaking at the Makor Rishon newspaper’s conference on Golan Heights, said the occupying regime intends to double the number of residents and build two new settlements in the Golan Heights.
In an address to the Non-Alignment Movement (NAM)’s meeting of member states, Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mikdad stressed his country’s right to re-establish control over the Golan Heights, which the Zionist regime has been occupying for more than half a century.
Mikdad said in a statement at the high-level meeting of the NAM states in the Serbian city of Belgrade on Monday that Syria has “every right” to restore the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Mikdad stressed that Syria is facing all forms of occupation and aggression by the U.S., Turkey and the Zionist regime, reaffirming that Syria will exert utmost effort to bring back all its occupied territories and combat terrorism.
The Zionist regime initially captured the area in a 1967 war and annexed it in 1981. However, the United Nations Security Council considers the Golan as part of Syria.
The U.S. administration under Donald Trump issued a presidential directive recognizing the occupying regime’s ‘sovereignty’ over the territory in 2019, but the move was criticized by the European Union, Russia, and numerous other countries.