Beijing, SANA-United Nations (UN) called on the Israeli occupation entity to end its military presence in the buffer zone between Syria and the occupied Syrian Golan Heights and to respect the 1974 Separation of Forces Agreement.
“The 1974 disengagement agreement between the Syrian Arab Republic and Israel must be respected and implemented because, at the end of the day, what we want and what our mission in the region requires is to maintain peace and stability there,” said the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix, in an exclusive interview with Chinese state broadcaster CCTV at the UN headquarters in New York, published on Saturday.
He added that “The presence of Israeli forces in the so-called buffer zone is temporary, according to several hints and indications we have received from our Israeli counterparts on several occasions.”
He went on to say “Obviously, we hope that this presence will be canceled and ended at some point, because according to the agreement and the Security Council resolution, this buffer zone is an area where the military presence is limited to the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) , So, evidently, our goal is to see the situation as it was before, in full accordance with Security Council resolutions.”
Lacroix’s remarks came after Israeli War Minister Yisrael Katz said last Tuesday that Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is prepared to stay in Syria for “an unlimited amount of time” to make sure “all the security zone in southern Syria is demilitarized.”
Fedaa
