SYRIA asked the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday to hold an urgent meeting on the U.S. decision to recognize the Golan Heights as Israeli territory.

U.S. President Donald Trump signed a proclamation Monday in which the United States recognized Israel’s annexation of the strategic plateau, despite U.N. resolutions that call for Israel’s withdrawal from the Golan.

Five European countries with seats on the council earlier rejected Trump’s decision and voiced concern that the U.S. move would have broad consequences in the Middle East.

Two of Washington’s closest allies — Britain and France — joined Belgium, Germany and Poland to declare that the European position had not changed and that the Golan remained Israeli-occupied Syrian territory, in line with international law enshrined in U.N. resolutions.

Three U.N. Security Council resolutions call on Israel to withdraw from the Golan, which it seized from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War and annexed in 1981 in a move that was never recognized internationally.

The Syrian mission to the United Nations asked the council presidency, held by France, to schedule an urgent meeting to “discuss the situation in the occupied Syrian Golan and the recent flagrant violation of the relevant Security Council’s resolution by a permanent member-state.”

The French presidency did not immediately schedule the meeting and diplomats said there would be a discussion at the council about the request.

On Friday, Syria wrote a separate letter urging the council to uphold resolutions demanding that Israel withdraw from the Golan.

The head of the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah, a key Syrian ally, called for resistance against the U.S. decision.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said the only option left to Syrians to take back their land — and for Palestinians to achieve their “legitimate rights” — was “resistance, resistance, and resistance.”

He described Trump’s move as “a crucial turning point in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict.”

Trump’s decision “deals a knockout punch to what is called the peace process in the region, which is built on the concept of land in exchange for peace,” he said in a televised address. He called on the Arab League, which has suspended Syria’s membership over the bloody repression of protests leading to the war, to take action at a summit at the end of the month in Tunis.

U.S. Acting Ambassador Jonathan Cohen told a council meeting on the Middle East that Washington had made the decision to stand up to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Iran. (SD-Agencies)