Syria says Trump's Golan pledge ignores international law

His abrupt tweet triggered delight in Israel but outrage from other countries in the region.

It breaks with UN Security Council resolutions and with more than half a century of US foreign policy, which treated the Golan as occupied territory whose future would be negotiated in talks with Syria on a comprehensive peace.

The territory's return has always been a key Syrian national demand, championed by government and rebels alike throughout the bloody civil war that has ripped the country apart since 2011.

The Syrian government said Trump's comments disregarded international law.

"The American position towards Syria's occupied Golan Heights clearly reflects the United States' contempt for international legitimacy and its flagrant violation of international law," a foreign ministry source told the official SANA news agency.

The source said Trump's comments showed the extent of his administration's "blind bias" towards Israel.

"The statements of the US president and his administration on the occupied Syrian Golan will never change the fact that the Golan was and will remain Arab and Syrian," the source said.

'National commitment'

Syria's main opposition grouping too condemned Trump's comments.

The Syrian Negotiations Commission voiced "its rejection of this decision and its national commitment to Syria's right to retrieve all its occupied territory."

Turkey, which hosted the last indirect peace talks between Israel and the Syrian government in 2008 but has backed Syrian rebels, said the change risked plunging the region into a "new crisis".

"We will never allow the occupation of Golan Heights to be made legitimate," President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted he was "shocked by @realDonaldTrump continuing to try to give what is not his to racist Israel."

In his tweet, Trump said the Golan was "of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and Regional Stability!"

"After 52 years it is time for the United States to fully recognise Israel's Sovereignty over the Golan Heights," he said.

Russian warning

Russia warned that the policy U-turn could spark new conflicts.

"Certainly, such appeals can considerably destabilise an already tense situation in the Middle East," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

"It's just a call fow now, hopefully it will remain a call."

The Arab League said Trump's comments were "completely outside international law".

The Gulf Cooperation Council said Trump's statement would not change "the constant fact", recognised internationally, that the "Golan heights are Syrian lands forcefully occupied by Israel".

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said lasting peace in the region requires Israel to withdraw from all Arab territories it occupies, including the Golan.

Egypt urged "respect (for) legitimate international resolutions and the United Nations Charter on the unacceptability of land appropriation by force".

Following decades of calm along the Golan armistice line after the Arab-Israeli conflict of 1973, tensions flared with the eruption of civil war in Syria in 2011.

Israel provided medical assistance to wounded rebel fighters and repeatedly struck government positions in response to stray fire across the frontier.

It has also targeted suspected positions of Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah, which have intervened militarily to back Assad.

Israeli thank you

Since the Syrian government decisively defeated rebel fighters near the armistice line last year with Iranian and Hezbollah support, Israel has repeatedly vowed to prevent its arch enemies from establishing a long-term military presence.

Trump's announcement was swiftly welcomed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is seeking re-election next month.

"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," the right-wing prime minister wrote on Twitter. "Thank you President Trump!"

Leon Panetta, a veteran Democrat who served as CIA director and defence secretary among other roles, blasted Trump for "tweeting out another policy that obviously has not been worked out with our international partners".

The Golan move is Trump's latest diplomatic bombshell as he seeks to redraw the fraught Middle East in Israel's favour.

In 2017, Trump went against decades of practice in recognising the disputed city of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, rather than the previously accepted Tel Aviv.