Damascus calls U.S. Golan decision attack on Syrian sovereignty

BEIRUT - 25 March 2019: Syria called the U.S. decision to recognise Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights a "blatant attack" on its sovereignty and territorial integrity on Monday, saying it had a right to reclaim the territory.

U.S. President Donald Trump signed a decree on Monday saying the United States recognizes Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, territory that Israel seized from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war.

"The liberation of the Golan by all available means and its return to the Syrian motherland is an inalienable right," Syria's foreign ministry said in a statement carried by state news agency SANA.

"The decision...makes the United States the main enemy of the Arabs."

The statement said nothing could change the "eternal historical fact that the Golan was and will remain Syrian Arab".