Israel cannot lay claim on Golan Heights: Erdogan

By Aynur Ekiz

ANKARA (AA) - President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday said Israel has no rights over the Golan Heights.

"Under UN resolutions, Israel cannot lay claim even on a small bit of Golan Heights," Erdogan said at an election rally in Turkey's central province of Konya.

The UN Human Rights Council on Friday passed a resolution opposing the Israeli occupation of Golan Heights, urging Israel to comply with UN resolutions.

The resolution was accepted with 26 votes in favor, 16 against and five abstentions.

This came a day after U.S. President Donald Trump said “it was time for the U.S. to fully recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights”.

Israel has long pushed Washington to recognize its claim over the territory it seized from Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War.

Israel occupies roughly two-thirds of the wider Golan Heights as a de facto result of the conflict. It moved to formally annex the territory in 1981 -- an action unanimously rejected at the time by the UN Security Council.

Today’s resolution called on Israel to allow Syrians in the occupied Golan Heights to visit their families, access of international institutions to the region and release all Syrian detainees, including those who have been held in Israeli jails for 30 years.