US President Donald Trump’s March 21 decision to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights has sparked widespread international reaction. While European countries announced that they would not follow suit, Russia expressed concern over the “negative repercussions” of the move. Turkey adopted a more active stance, calling for an emergency meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). Trump’s announcement was also met with negative reactions from Arab allies of the United States.

Iran’s adoption of a low-profile position on Trump’s recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights appears to be a calculated move to maximize its regional interests. However, despite being the Syrian government’s main ally, Iran’s initial reaction to the American move has been rather mild — and in fact not much different from the positions of other nations. While “strongly condemning” Trump’s decision, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghassemi said March 22, “According to the resolutions of the United Nations and the Security Council, the Golan Heights is an occupied part of the Syrian territories and no solution for this [issue] is conceivable except for ending the occupation.”

Meanwhile, attending the OIC summit in Istanbul, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on March 22 took to Twitter to express "shock" over Trump’s attempts “to give what is not his to racist Israel.”

But the Islamic Republic’s first major reaction came only several days later, on March 26, when President Hassan Rouhani compared the US move with the behavior of “colonial powers” in the past and called for “closer regional cooperation” to counter the United States and Israel. As such, for almost a week after Trump’s announcement — and with the exception of Zarif’s tweet — no high-ranking Iranian political or military official took a stance on this issue. This can be confounding since, to reiterate, Iran is the Syrian government’s main ally — and because the US move to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights has been broadly condemned internationally.