Golan 'forever' part of Israel, Netanyahu says after Blinken comments
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken appeared to question the previous administration's controversial decision to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
The Golan Heights will stay “forever a part of the State of Israel,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Tuesday in response to recent comments from US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
During a CNN interview, Blinken said on Monday that if the situation in Syria were to change, the administration would “look at” the Donald Trump administration's controversial decision to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
“As a practical matter, the control of the Golan in that situation I think remains of real importance to Israel’s security,” Blinken told CNN. “Legal questions are something else and over time if the situation were to change in Syria, that’s something we look at, but we are nowhere near that.”
Israel captured most of the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 war. The country annexed the mountainous plateau in 1981, in a move Israel defends as necessary for its security.
