Russia ‘doesn’t recognize Israel’s sovereignty over Golan Heights’

Israel has controlled parts of the Golan Heights since 1967. (AFP)
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Updated 24 February 2022
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Russia ‘doesn’t recognize Israel’s sovereignty over Golan Heights’

  • Moscow ‘concerned’ over settlement expansion plans that violate 1949 Geneva Convention
  • The territory was seized from Syria in 1967 and annexed in 1981

LONDON: Russia has criticized Israeli settlement expansion plans in the Golan Heights.

“We’re concerned over Tel Aviv’s announced plans for expanding settlement activity in the occupied #GolanHeights, which contradicts the provisions of the 1949 Geneva Convention,” the Russian mission to the UN tweeted.

“Russia doesn’t recognize Israel’s sovereignty over Golan Heights that are part of #Syria.”

Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967 and annexed the territory in 1981, in a move not recognized by the international community.

A resolution by the UN Security Council, of which Russia is a permanent member, states: “The Israeli decision to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights is null and void and without international legal effect.”

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett announced plans late last year to double the number of settlements in the territory.


Take back and prosecute your jailed Daesh militants, Iraq tells Europe

Updated 24 January 2026
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Take back and prosecute your jailed Daesh militants, Iraq tells Europe

RAQQA: Baghdad on Friday urged European states to repatriate and prosecute their citizens who fought for Daesh, and who are now being moved to Iraq from detention camps in Syria.

Europeans were among 150 Daesh prisoners transferred so far by the US military from Kurdish custody in Syria. They were among an estimated 7,000 militants due to be moved across the border to Iraq as the Kurdish-led force that has held them for years relinquishes swaths of territory to the advancing Syrian army.
In a telephone call on Friday with French President Emmanuel Macron, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani said European countries should take back and prosecute their nationals.
An Iraqi security official said the 150 so far transferred to Iraq were “all leaders of the Daesh group, and some of the most notorious criminals.” They included “Europeans, Asians, Arabs and Iraqis,” he said.
Another Iraqi security source said the group comprised “85 Iraqis and 65 others of various nationalities, including Europeans, Sudanese, Somalis, and people from the Caucasus region.”
They all took part in Daesh operations in Iraq, he said, and were now being held at a prison in Baghdad.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that “non-Iraqi terrorists will be in Iraq temporarily.”
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces jailed thousands of militant fighters and detained tens of thousands of their relatives in camps as it pushed out Daesh in 2019 after five years of fighting.