US envoy walks back his comments on Golan Heights that contradicted Trump’s position

The US special envoy to Syria and ambassador to Turkey on Sunday walked back his comments from two days ago that Israel “still” occupies the Golan Heights in violation of UN resolutions, remarks that went against US President Donald Trump’s position on the disputed territory.

Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed it in 1981. The United Nations and most of the international community consider the territory occupied Syrian land and does not recognise Israel’s annexation of it.

In 2019, Trump recognised Israeli sovereignty over the territory, reversing decades of US policy.

Ambassador Tom Barrack on Friday said Israel “still” occupies the territory in an interview with Lebanese-Australian entrepreneur Mario Nawfal.

Barrack now says that was a description of the territory’s historical status, “not an endorsement of the United Nations’ position” on the Golan.

“United States policy on the Golan was set by President Trump in 2019 and is unchanged,” he said in a statement to Associated Press on Sunday.

He said he intended to explain why he does not anticipate annexation in Lebanon, where Israeli forces were occupying parts of the south after the latest Israel-Hezbollah war, and to argue that negotiated agreements, rather than territorial maps, are more durable and that he had cited the Golan as an example that “territory taken by force remains contested for generations”.