Time to recognise Israel’s sovereignty over Golan Heights, Trump drops another bomb

Washington, March 22: US President Donald Trump never stops surprising the world. Months after recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moving the local American Embassy there, Trump has now come up with the viewpoint that it is time to recognise Israel's sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights that it had captured from Syria over half a decade ago.

In a tweet posted on Thursday, March 21, Trump said that the plateau was of "critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and regional stability". Israel annexed Golan in the early 1980s though it was not acknowledged internationally.

Trump's tweet sounded sweet to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who had warned about "military entrenchment" of Israel's major enemy Iran in Syria and ordered air strikes to thwart it. He tweeted thanking Trump.

No reaction was yet found from Syria which has also sought to retake the region.

"At a time when Iran seeks to use Syria as a platform to destroy Israel, President Trump boldly recognises Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights," Netanyahu wrote.

However, there are also voices that did not second Trump's move. Richard Haass, a former senior US state department official who is currently the president of the Council on Foreign Relations think-tank, said he did not agree with Trump's position adding that recognising Israeli sovereignty would constitute a violation of the UN Security Council resolution that rejects acquiring territory by means of war, BBC reported.