Alwaght-The United States has been condemned globally after President Donald Trump declared Thursday that he will recognize Syria's Golan Heights as Israeli territory.
The Arab League, Russia, Iran and Turkey have strongly warned the US after Trump's illegal declaration.
The strategic highlands have been under the Israeli regimes occupation since 1967, but Trump's abrupt declaration a day after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's visit to Israel brings the dispute to a boiling point.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday Trump's statement has brought the region to the edge of a new crisis.
In a speech at a meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Istanbul, Erdogan said: "We cannot allow the legitimization of the occupation of the Golan Heights."
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif expressed shock at Trump's plan.
"All shocked by @realDonaldTrump continuing to try to give what is not his to racist Israel: first Al-Quds & now Golan" Zarif tweeted from Istanbul where he was attending the emergency OIC meeting.
"This illegal and unacceptable recognition does not change the fact that it belongs to Syria," Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said in Tehran.
“The Zionist regime, as an occupying regime, has no sovereignty over any Islamic and Arab lands and its occupation (of the Golan) and acts of violation should be swiftly brought to an end,” he said.
Qassemi said the only solution to the Golan dispute is to end the Israeli occupation. He said Trump's "personal and rash decisions reveal yet another reality of US policies that are dangerous to the entire world, and will particularly push this volatile region to successive crises.”
The Islamic Republic, he said, "will closely monitor all future developments in the region and continue its cooperation and consultations with the Syrian government and other countries to take appropriate measures."
Syria, which declared last month that it was ready to go to another war with Israel for the Golan, condemned Trump's pledge in a statement issued by its foreign ministry on Friday.
"The American position towards Syria's occupied Golan Heights clearly reflects the United States' contempt for international legitimacy and its flagrant violation of international law," it said.
“The irresponsible remarks by Trump, the US president, one more time demonstrated the US’ blind and relentless support for the Israeli occupying regime and its hostile acts,” it added.
The Syrian statement on Friday said Washington’s stance is a threat to global peace and security.
"The statements of the US president and his administration on the occupied Syrian Golan will never change the fact that the Golan was and will remain Arab and Syrian," it said.
"The Syrian nation is more determined to liberate this precious piece of Syrian national land through all available means," it added.
Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit said the 22-member organization "fully supports Syria's right for its occupied territory."
The Golan Heights are “occupied territory” belonging to Syria under international law and the resolutions of the United Nations and the UN Security Council, he stressed.
