By Xinhua
Damascus : Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem on Tuesday demanded the international community to pressure Israel to allow the Syrian families in the occupied Golan Heights to visit their relatives in their motherland.
Muallem made the demand in letters to UN Secretary General, current President of the European Union, Chairman of the Human Rights Council and the UN Human Rights High Commissioner, the official SANA news agency reported.
In his letters, sent a day before the important Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, Muallem indicated that such compulsive and oppressive prevention of the Golan families would further their sufferings and constitutes a flagrant violation of the duties of the occupation authorities.
The minister also underlined that Israel still rejects to return the Golan to Syria and did not respond to relevant UN resolutions to establish a just and comprehensive peace in the region.
Peace negotiations between Israel and Syria foundered in 2000 largely over the fate of the strategic Golan, occupied by the Jewish state during the 1967 Middle East war.