Syria condemns Trump’s remarks on Golan Heights

Syria has condemned as "irresponsible" US President Donald Trump's comments that it was time to recognize Israel's sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights.

Syrian state news agency cited a foreign ministry source on Friday as saying Trump's statement showed "the blind bias of the United States" towards Israel.

It said Syria was determined to recover the area "through all available means".

Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967 and annexed it in 1981 in a move not recognized internationally.

Israel wants to contain the military presence of its arch-enemy Iran in Syria, which has grown stronger throughout eight years of conflict.

Trump's remarks on Thursday overturned decades of US policy on the issue. In a tweet, he said the plateau was of "critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and regional stability!"

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked the US president in a phone call, telling him "you've made history".

In 2017, Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital and ordered the relocation of the US embassy to the city from Tel Aviv.

The decision was condemned by Palestinians, who want East Jerusalem to be the capital of a future Palestinian state, and the UN General Assembly demanded its cancellation.

Both Iran and Russia have deployed forces into Syria in support of Assad during the Syrian conflict, with Iran sending both its own forces and also backing regional Shia militias such as Lebanon's Hezbollah that have helped Damascus.

Netanyahu has pressed the United States to recognize its claim and raised that possibility in his first White House meeting with Trump in February 2017.

Trump's statement has given a boost to Netanyahu in the middle of his re-election campaign. Israel will vote on April 9.

Syria has always insisted that it will not agree on a peace deal with Israel unless it withdraws from the whole of the Golan. The last US-brokered direct peace talks broke down in 2000, while Turkey mediated in indirect talks in 2008.

There are more than 30 Israeli settlements in the Golan, which are home to an estimated 20,000 people. The settlements are considered illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this. The settlers live alongside some 20,000 Syrians, most of them Druze Arabs, who did not flee when the Golan was captured.