DUBAI, March 29 (Reuters) – Iran called on Friday on Palestinians to be steadfast in their resistance against U.S. President Donald Trump’s moves in support of Israel on Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.
Iran spoke on the eve of “Land Day”, an annual commemoration of the deaths of six Arab citizens of Israel killed by Israeli security forces during demonstrations over government land confiscations in northern Israel in 1976.
“The U.S. president’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital…and the occupied Golan Heights as part of the illegitimate Zionist regime…shows clearly that Palestinian resistance and perseverance as symbolised by ‘Earth Day’ is the right path,” Iran’s foreign ministry said on its website.
Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed it in 1981 in a move that the 15-member U.N. Security Council declared “null and void and without international legal effect”.
Palestinians seek an independent state in territory taken by Israel in the 1967 war. Israeli-Palestinian peace talks have been frozen since 2014.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait on Tuesday criticized the U.S. decision on the Golan and said the territory was occupied Arab land. Non-Arab Iran echoed the comments.
“Americans are breaking international law on a daily basis…and recently in regards to the Golan Heights,” Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said in remarks carried by state television. “We should resist this and, God willing, we will come out victorious.”
Tensions between Tehran and Washington have increased since Trump pulled out of a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers last year and reimposed sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
(Reporting by Dubai newsroom Editing by Mark Heinrich)
