By signing a proclamation recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, US President Donald Trump once again laid a mine under the settlement process in the Middle East. Leonid Slutsky, Chairman of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs, told the Parliamentary Gazette on Monday.
The deputy noted that this is already the third destructive decision taken by the US administration – after the transfer of the American embassy to Jerusalem and the exit from the Iranian “nuclear deal”.
According to him, there are two factors behind the recognition of the US Golan Heights as an Israeli territory: this is Donald Trump’s undisguised personal sympathy for Tel Aviv, and the positioning of Israel as a strategic partner of the United States.
“The Golan Heights are of great defense importance for Israel. And Trump decided to cut this Gordian knot off his shoulder, completely ignoring the international consensus on this issue. But in this way, the United States once again laid a mine under the settlement process in the Middle East,” said Slutsky.
The head of the Duma committee stressed that Trump’s signing of the proclamation recognizing the Golan Heights as Israeli completely contradicts international law and UN resolutions.
“I am sure that such a position will not be supported by the world community. The one-sided pro-distal line of Washington will not simplify, but, on the contrary, complicate the situation in the region,” he concluded.
