SUNDAY TIMES WEB DESK:Belgium, Britain, France, Germany and Poland insisted that the European position had not changed and that the Golan remained Israeli-occupied Syrian territory, in line with international law enshrined in UN resolutions.
“We do not recognise Israel’s sovereignty over the territories occupied by Israel since June 1967, including the Golan Heights, and we do not consider them to be part of the territory of the state of Israel,” Belgian Ambassador Marc Pesteen de Buytswerve told reporters.
“We raise our strong concerns about broader consequences of recognising illegal annexation and also about the broader regional consequences,” he said, flanked by the ambassadors of the four other countries.
Three UN Security Council resolutions call on Israel to withdraw from the Golan, which it seized from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War and annexed in 1981, in a move that was never recognised internationally.