Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israeli forces have seized a buffer zone in the Golan Heights established by a 1974 ceasefire agreement with Syria.
He spoke on Sunday after a lightning rebel advance ended Syrian President Bashar Assad’s rule.
Netanyahu said the decades-old agreement had collapsed and that Syrian troops had abandoned their positions, necessitating the Israeli takeover.
Israel captured the Golan Heights in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed it. The international community, except for the United States, views it as occupied Syrian territory.
Iran says Syrians should decide country’s future
Damascus: Iran, which had strongly backed President Bashar Assad’s deposed government, says Syrians should decide their country’s future without “without destructive, coercive, foreign intervention.”
The statement from the Foreign Ministry on Sunday was the country’s first official reaction to the overthrow of Assad’s government by rebel forces, who reached capital Damascus over the weekend.
Iran has been a staunch supporter of Assad throughout the nearly 14-year civil war.
Instructions to transfer power peacefully
Moscow: Russia’s Foreign Ministry claimed Sunday that Bashar Assad had left Syria after negotiations with rebel groups, and gave “instructions” to “transfer power peacefully”. In a post on the Telegram messaging app on Sunday, the ministry said Moscow had not directly participated in these talks. It also said it has been following the “dramatic events” in Syria “with extreme concern”. It also said Russian troops stationed in Syria have been put on high alert and that as of early afternoon Sunday, there was “no serious threat” to the security of Russia’s military bases there. Russia has waged a military campaign in Syria since September 2015, teaming up with Iran to allow Assad’s government to fight armed opposition groups and reclaim control over most of the country. While Russia now concentrates the bulk of its military resources in Ukraine, it has maintained a military foothold in Syria and keeps troops at its bases there.