Syrian Ambassador to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) Hussam Edin Aala called on Israel to withdraw from the Golan Heights and swore that his country had a right to “recover” that territory from Israel.
“We demand accountability and we call for impunity to be combated,” Aala said. “We condemn the decision of the Trump administration which is illegal, regarding the occupied Golan.” In doing so, the US has also “flouted” UN Security Council resolutions, he added.
“We need to put an end to the actions of the occupation,” which is “confiscating” land and “pillaging” resources, Aala said. Syria opposes the Israeli government practice to hold meetings on the Golan and its decision to create a new town named for US President Donald Trump, he said.
Such steps, Aala said, are “provocative.” The US has encouraged the “occupying power to perpetrate further war crimes” by flouting UN organs that carry out field investigations, he added.
“Our country in no way recognizes any of the administrative measures taken by the Israeli occupying power in the Syrian Golan,” the ambassador said.
Syria “reiterates that the sovereign right to recover the occupied Syrian Golan up to the line of June 4, 1967, is an inalienable right and it can not be in any way restricted,” he said.
Syria also calls on Israel to withdraw from the “occupied Lebanese territories,” Aala said.
He represented one of many countries at the UNHRC who called on the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet to publish a date base on companies doing business with entities located over the pre-1967 lines.
Aala was one of a number of speakers at the UNHRC Agenda 7 debate, which spoke against Israeli sovereignty on the Golan and in favor of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the pre-1967 lines. Israel captured the Golan Heights during the 1967 war and annexed it in 1981. This year, the Trump administration recognized its sovereignty there, explaining that the territory is vital for Israel’s security.