{"id":1019837,"date":"2026-08-23T22:31:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T22:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1019837\/"},"modified":"2026-08-23T22:31:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T22:31:15","slug":"us-envoy-tom-barrack-retracts-comment-that-syrias-golan-is-occupied-politics-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1019837\/","title":{"rendered":"US envoy Tom Barrack retracts comment that Syria\u2019s Golan is occupied | Politics News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ambassador to Turkiye says US policy of recognising Israel\u2019s claimed sovereignty over Syrian territory is \u2018unchanged\u2019.<\/p>\n

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Published On 23 Aug 202623 Aug 2026<\/p>\n

United States Ambassador Tom Barrack<\/a> has reasserted Washington\u2019s position that Syria\u2019s Golan Heights belongs to Israel after saying last week that the territory is occupied against \u201call of the international order\u201d.<\/p>\n

US President Donald Trump\u2019s ambassador to Turkiye and envoy for Syria walked back that comment on Sunday, underscoring Trump\u2019s policy of recognising Israel\u2019s claimed sovereignty over the stretch of land in southern Syria.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

\u201cUnited States policy on the Golan was set by President Trump in 2019 and is unchanged,\u201d he told The Associated Press news agency in a statement.<\/p>\n

Israel occupied the Golan during the 1967 Six-Day War and annexed the territory in 1981.<\/p>\n

Until Trump backed the Israeli claim to the Syrian territory, no country had recognised the Golan as part of Israel.<\/p>\n

The recognition sparked an international outcry. Legal experts warned that it could upend a core tenet of the post-World War II global order: the prohibition on acquiring land by force.<\/p>\n

Former US President Joe Biden promoted the so-called rules-based order early in his tenure, but he failed to reverse<\/a> Trump\u2019s policy on the Golan during his four-year term.<\/p>\n

Recently, Colombia\u2019s right-wing government joined the US<\/a> in backing Israel\u2019s claim on the Golan.<\/p>\n

In an interview with podcaster Mario Nawfal on Friday, Barrack appeared to acknowledge that the Golan is occupied Syrian land.<\/p>\n

Barrack was asked whether Israel has plans to annex parts of southern Lebanon. He said regardless of intent, Israel knows that it would be difficult to claim Lebanese territory as its own.<\/p>\n

\u201cSaying that, in the Golan with Syria, they still occupy the Golan against the UN resolutions, against all of the international order, which has said the Golan is Syria\u2019s,\u201d Barrack said.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s advocates were quick to criticise Barrack\u2019s comment. Far-right commentator Laura Loomer called on the envoy to step down.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe should resign for his lack of understanding of US foreign policy,\u201d she wrote in a social media post, sharing Trump\u2019s 2019 proclamation saying that the Golan belongs to Israel.<\/p>\n

Republican Senator Rick Scott also criticised the ambassador, saying Barrack was confirmed by the Senate to enact Trump\u2019s agenda.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems the Ambassador forgot that or failed to do his research, so here\u2019s a refresher for him,\u201d Scott wrote in a social media post that included Trump\u2019s executive order on the Golan Heights.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Trump has been CLEAR about Israel\u2019s sovereignty over the Golan Heights for years!\u201d<\/p>\n

Barrack had also been criticised for opposing Israeli air strikes<\/a> on a Syrian airbase last week.<\/p>\n

In his interview with Nawfal, Barrack suggested that the Israeli strikes in Syria were aimed at antagonising Turkiye, which is allied with the Syrian government.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne theory is they were just baiting Turkiye, and it\u2019s a very aggressive, but maybe well-received pre-election concept,\u201d Barrack said, referring to US midterm elections in November.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ambassador to Turkiye says US policy of recognising Israel\u2019s claimed sovereignty over Syrian territory is \u2018unchanged\u2019. Published On…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1019838,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5],"tags":[99,13191,3097,50,80,23312,67,72,103],"class_list":["post-1019837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-israel","tag-israel-palestine-conflict","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-syria","tag-united-states","tag-us-canada","tag-world"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117147199638615950","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1019837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1019837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1019837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1019838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1019837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1019837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1019837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}