Syria’s vice-president has accused Israel of deliberately undermining Middle East peace initiatives after it announced it was stepping up Jewish settlements in the occupied Golan Heights.
“Aborting any peace initiative in the region is part of Israeli policy,” Abd al-Halim Khaddam told reporters.
“This measure and the assassination of Palestinian leaders in the occupied territories shows that Israel remains hostile to peace and that it is pressing ahead with the Zionist project against the interests and future of the Arab nation,” he said after talks with a delegation of Iraqi tribal leaders.
On Wednesday, the head of an Israeli cross-ministerial commission said the panel had decided to increase by half the Jewish population of the Golan Heights, which was seized from Syria in the 1967 Middle East War and unilaterally annexed in 1981.