Tehran slams Trump's Golan Heights tweet

<p>By Tayfur Bayrakli</p> <p>ANKARA (AA) – The Iranian Foreign Ministry has criticized a Thursday tweet by U.S. President Donald Trump in which he said it was “time” for the U.S. to “fully recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights”. </p> <p>Israel occupied Syria’s Golan Heights during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. It later “annexed” the territory in 1981 in a move unanimously rejected at the time by the UN Security Council. </p> <p>“This decision regarding a sensitive region will lead to a fresh crisis,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi said in a statement.</p> <p>“The Israeli regime has no right to Arab and Muslim territories,” he added, calling for an “immediate end” to Israel’s decades-long occupation of Arab land, including the Golan Heights.</p> <p>In a Thursday tweet, Trump declared: “After 52 years [since the war] it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and security importance to the state of Israel and regional stability!”</p> <p>Notably, the U.S. State Department last week officially referred to the Golan Heights as an “Israeli-controlled” territory. Previously, it had consistently referred to the region as “Israeli-occupied”.</p> <p>And last November, the U.S. — for the first time — voted against an annual UN resolution condemning Israel's continued occupation of the Golan.</p> <p>While 151 countries voted in support of the resolution, only Israel and the U.S. voted against it.</p>