Antony Blinken (US Secretary of State) stopped Trump administration's recognition of the Israeli annexed Golan Heights. However, he note...
Antony Blinken (US Secretary of State) stopped Trump administration's recognition of the Israeli annexed Golan Heights. However, he noted that the territory was important for Israel's security.
Blinken said "As a practical matter, the control of the Golan in that situation I think remains of real importance to Israel’s security. Legal questions are something else and over time if the situation were to change in Syria, that's something we look at, but we are nowhere near that."
Also, he added that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government as well as the presence of militia groups backed by Iran poses a 'significant security threat' to Israel.
It is noted that Biden’s advisers had said previously that he would not withdraw US recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
Israel captured the Golan from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War and administered it since 1981. The move was not recognized by internationally, except former President Donald Trump’s administration officially granted US recognition of the Golan Heights as Israeli territory in 2019. It was a dramatic US policy shift from decades.
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