Syria Smells Oil, Protests Israel’s Golan Heights Exploration

Syria sent a letter to the United Nations Security Council and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon Thursday protesting the granting of a license to explore for oil and gas in the Golan Heights.

It called the government approval a “blatant violation” of what it considers its sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which Israel annexed after Syrian fled in the Six-Day War in 1967.

Syria previously has not protested the establishment by Israeli companies of a large winery and a mineral water bottling plant, among dozens of other industrial and tourist ventures in the Golan Heights.