Syria’s interim government called on the UN Security Council to take action to compel Israel to immediately stop its attacks on Syrian territory and withdraw from areas it has penetrated in the north in violation of a 1974 Disengagement Agreement.
In identical letters to the council and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres obtained Friday by The Associated Press, Syria’s UN Ambassador Koussay Aldahhak said he was acting “on instructions from my government” in making the demands. It appeared to be the first letter to the UN from Syria’s new interim government.
The letters are dated Dec. 9, days after the opposition ousted President Bashar al-Assad and ended his family’s more than 50-year authoritarian rule of Syria.
“At a time when the Syrian Arab Republic is witnessing a new phase in its history in which its people aspire to establish a state of freedom, equality and the rule of law and to achieve their hopes for prosperity and stability, the Israeli occupation army has penetrated additional areas of Syrian territory in Mount Hermon and Quneitra Governorate,” ambassador Aldahhak wrote.
Israel still controls the Golan Heights that it captured from Syria during the 1967 Mideast war. The Disengagement Agreement ending the 1973 war between Israel and Syria established a demilitarized buffer zone between the two countries, monitored by a UN peacekeeping force known as UNDOF.
In a letter to the Security Council circulated Friday which was also written on Dec. 9, Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon said his country had taken “limited and temporary measures,” deploying troops temporarily in the separation area “to prevent armed groups from threatening Israeli territory.”
