US envoy Barrack tries to downplay his comment that Israel occupies Golan, which defied US policy

The US special envoy to Syria and ambassador to Turkey attempts to walk back his comments from two days ago that Israel “still” occupies the Golan Heights, in violation of UN resolutions, remarks that went against US President Donald Trump’s position on the disputed territory.

Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Six Day War and annexed it in 1981. The UN considers the territory occupied Syrian land.

In 2019, Trump recognized Israeli sovereignty over the territory, reversing decades of US policy.

Ambassador Tom Barrack said in a Friday interview with Lebanese-Australian entrepreneur Mario Nawfal that “in the Golan, with Syria, they still occupy the Golan against the UN resolutions, against all the international order, which has said the Golan is Syria’s.”

Barrack now claims that was a description of the territory’s historical status, “not an endorsement of the United Nations’ position” on the Golan.

“United States policy on the Golan was set by President Trump in 2019 and is unchanged,” he says in a statement to The Associated Press.

He says he intended to explain why he does not anticipate annexation in Lebanon, where Israeli forces are occupying parts of the south to dismantle Hezbollah infrastructure. He also says he had meant to argue that negotiated agreements, rather than territorial maps, are more durable and that he had cited the Golan as an example that “territory taken by force remains contested for generations.”

In response to the Friday interview, Defense Minister Israel Katz said Barrack’s remarks were “full of inaccuracies” and included “positions that contradict the position of US President Trump.”

Barrack’s comments on the Golan also sparked a backlash in Washington. Florida Republican Senator Rick Scott wrote on X that the ambassador appeared to have “forgotten” Trump’s recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the territory.