The Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, condemned today the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s recent visit to the Golan Heights as further evidence of Washington’s lack of respect for the international law.
“We see this as another manifestation of the United States’ blatantly disdainful attitude to the globally recognized international legal principles of the Mideastern settlement,” she said at a briefing.
Pompeo on Israel trip:
-Golan Heights = 'Part of Israel'
-Products from the occupied West Bank = 'Made in Israel'
-BDS movement = 'Anti-Semitic'Is the US secretary of state trying to cement Israel's occupation before the end of Trump's presidency? pic.twitter.com/FkwzedkmpF
— TRT World (@trtworld) November 20, 2020
Zakharova added, “The US administration’s attempts to give legitimacy to the illegal Israeli settlements contradicts the United Nations Charter and the [UN] Security Council’s resolutions.”
“Russia sees the Golan Heights as territory occupied by Israel, and considers the Israeli settlements there to be constructed illegally,” she reaffirmed.
On November 19, Pompeo became the first top American diplomat to visit a West Bank Jewish settlement and the disputed Golan Heights, cementing Donald Trump’s strongly pro-Israel legacy.
US Pompeo Visits West Bank Settlement, Golan Heights, in First https://t.co/bfXQeB6ssa
— Joe Catron (@jncatron) November 20, 2020
Accompanied by Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi, Pompeo traveled aboard a Blackhawk helicopter to the Golan Heights, a strategic territory the Jewish state seized from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War.
Last year, Trump’s administration controversially recognized Israeli sovereignty in the Golan, and Pompeo on Thursday condemned what he described as calls from “the salons in Europe and in the elite institutions in America” for Israel to return the Golan to Syria.
(Palestine Chronicle, WAFA, Social Media)
