In a meeting with the head of the UN peacekeeping force, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, the new Syrian government called on Israel to withdraw from the Syrian territories it occupied after the overthrow of the Bashar al-Assad regime, Agence France-Presse reported.
The Syrian authorities stressed "Syria's readiness to cooperate fully with the UN", according to a statement issued after the meeting between Lacroix, Syrian Foreign Minister Assad al-Shibani and Defense Minister Murhaf Abu Kasra.
The government in Damascus also expressed its readiness to deploy its forces on the Golan Heights "in accordance with the 1974 agreement providing for the immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces", the statement added, quoted by the Syrian news agency SANA
Immediately after the overthrow of the Bashar al-Assad regime on December 8, Israel deployed its military units in the demilitarized buffer zone of the Golan Heights in southwestern Syria - at the edge of the plateau occupied by Israel since the 1967 war. and annexed in 1981.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has ordered the army to prepare to remain in the buffer zone between Syria and Israel throughout the winter.
Yesterday, he added that Israeli forces "will remain on Mount Hermon and in the security zone indefinitely to ensure the security of the Golan Heights, the north (of Israel) and all citizens of the State of Israel."
"We will not allow enemy forces to establish themselves in the security zone in southern Syria," Katz warned.
The UN considers Israel's takeover of the zone a "violation of the 1974 agreement."