BEIRUT (AP) — The U.S. special envoy to Syria and ambassador to Turkey on Sunday walked back his comments from two days ago that Israel "still” occupies the Golan Heights in violation of U.N. resolutions, remarks that went against U.S. President Donald Trump 's position on the disputed territory.
Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed it in 1981. The United Nations and most of the international community consider the territory occupied Syrian land and does not recognize Israel’s annexation of it.
In 2019, Trump recognized Israeli sovereignty over the territory, reversing decades of U.S. policy.
Ambassador Tom Barrack on Friday said that Israel “still” occupies the territory in an interview with Lebanese-Australian entrepreneur Mario Nawfal.
Barrack now says 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 said in a statement to The Associated Press on Sunday.
He said he intended to explain why he does not anticipate annexation in Lebanon, where Israeli forces are occupying parts of the south after the latest Israel-Hezbollah war, and 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 the Friday interview, Barrack had also criticized Israel’s strikes on an airbase in northern Syria earlier last week. Israeli officials said the strikes intended to prevent Turkey from establishing a presence at the base.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz defended the strikes, saying on X on Sunday that critics who initially called it “unnecessary and politically motivated” changed their position after the government said they were based on “clear intelligence” and at the recommendation of the Israeli army. He added that Israel would not allow Turkey “to establish itself in Syria and threaten Israeli security.”
The strikes last Tuesday have highlighted growing tensions between Israel and Turkey over Ankara’s increased influence in Syria following the fall of Bashar Assad. Turkey and Syria have denied that Turkish forces were due to be deployed at the Abu Duhur base.
Barrack’s comments on the Golan also sparked a backlash in Washington.
Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott wrote on X that the ambassador appears to have “forgotten” Trump’s recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the territory.
Barrack went further on the defensive on Sunday, responding to criticism of his assessment of ongoing negotiations between Israel and Lebanon over Israeli withdrawal and the disarmament of the militant group.
He had said “there are two people missing from that (negotiating) table – Hezbollah and Iran.” That remark prompted speculation Barrack meant Tehran and Hezbollah should join the U.S.-backed negotiations.
On Sunday, Barrack stressed that the U.S. does not negotiate with Hezbollah, but said he was pointing out that “the weapons in question are supplied and financed by Iran," which complicates negotiations over their fate.
“I was describing the difficulty of the problem, not proposing a new table,” Barrack told the AP. “Hezbollah is a designated foreign terrorist organization. We do not negotiate with it, and nothing I said suggests otherwise.”
He also defended his remarks questioning who would replace Tehran’s financial support for Shiite communities in southern Lebanon, saying that raising those questions was “not conferring standing on anyone.”
FILE - U.S. Ambassador to Turkey and Special Envoy to Syria Tom Barrack speaks in a panel during the Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Antalya, southern Turkey, April 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Riza Ozel, File)
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesian police on Sunday arrested 72 people suspected of starting some of the recent forest and peatland fires as huge blazes in central and western parts of the country triggered a harmful cloud known as a choking haze.
Indonesia has been battling fires driven by an intensifying El Nino pattern and a prolonged dry season, generating dense smoke that crossed into Malaysia, according to Indonesia’s National Disaster Management Agency, or BNPB.
Fires are a regular problem in the country and often strain relations with neighbors.
Plantation owners and traditional farmers often start fires to clear land for farming, said Mohammad Irhamni, director of special crimes at the National Police’s Criminal Investigation Agency.
The arson suspects were being investigated in connection with 89 forest and land fire cases across five provinces on the island of Borneo and four on Sumatra, Irhamni said.
He said most of the suspects were accused of deliberately burning land to clear areas for plantations at lower cost. Investigators were still tracing financial records to determine whether companies financed or ordered the land clearing, signaling the probe could expand beyond those arrested.
“We will not stop at the perpetrators on the ground,” Irhami said in a news conference Sunday in the capital, Jakarta. “We will determine who benefited from these activities and who was ultimately behind them.”
The suspects face charges that carry penalties ranging from hefty fines to prison terms of up to 15 years, he said.
Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto flew on Saturday to Central Kalimantan province, where more than 7,600 hectares (18,700 acres) have burned, to encourage authorities to get the haze cloud under control.
Prabowo promised government resources required to contain the fires, including helicopters and water pumps, and vowed to hold accountable any companies found to have contributed to the fires.
“I hope we can control this soon,” Prabowo said during the visit. “We have experienced worse forest and land fires in the past, and we were able to overcome them.”
Accompanying the president was Prasetyo Hadi, the head of State Secretariat. He said at least four companies in West Kalimantan province are under investigation for allegedly using fire to clear land. If they are proven to have intentionally set the fires, they could face sanctions, including the revocation of their operating permits, he added.
Smoke from the fires on Sunday blanketed parts of Borneo, the world’s third-largest island shared by Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. Indonesia administers about three-quarters of the island, where the country’s Environment Ministry recorded more than 3,700 hot spots on Sunday.
BNPB chief Suharyanto said fire activity had increased in West, Central and South Kalimantan provinces on Borneo, where many blazes worsen due to peatlands, prolonging the dangerous haze in several areas.
Fires that appear "extinguished on the surface may still contain embers underneath, so sufficient rainfall is crucial to rewet the peat and fully suppress the fires,” said Suharyanto, who, like many Indonesians, uses a single name.
The western island of South Sumatra also battled fires, with more than 1,700 hot spots detected on Sunday, causing a choked haze cloud and reducing visibility to only 10 meters (33 feet) in some areas, the ministry said.
Cloud-seeding resumed over Kalimantan on Sunday, with 30 helicopters for water-bombing and aerial patrol missions, and another 22 helicopters covering Sumatra.
Meanwhile, Malaysia has suffered severe smoke from the fires, with its eastern state of Sarawak among the hardest hit. One district recorded “very unhealthy” air quality on Friday, while eight others posted unhealthy readings, prompting the closure of nearly 600 schools and affecting about 200,000 students, the Sarawak government said.
A man is silhouetted against the haze from wildfires that blankets Musi River in Palembang, South Sumatra, Indonesia, Sunday, Aug. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Muhammad Fajri)
People walk along the Ampera Bridge as haze from wildfires blankets the city of Palembang, in South Sumatra, Indonesia, Sunday, Aug. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Muhammad Fajri)
In this aerial photo released by Indonesia's National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) on Friday, Aug. 21, 2026, smoke billows as a wildfire rages through a peatland forest in Bulungan, North Kalimantan, Indonesia. (BNPB via AP)
A boat cruises on the Kapuas River as haze from wildfires blankets the city of Pontianak, West Kalimantan, Indonesia, Friday, Aug. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Stefanus Taman)
Motorists ride on a road as haze from wildfires blankets the city of Pontianak, West Kalimantan, Indonesia, Friday, Aug. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Stefanus Taman)
In this aerial photo released by Indonesia's National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) on Friday, Aug. 21, 2026, smoke billows as a wildfire rages through a peatland forest in Bulungan, North Kalimantan, Indonesia. (BNPB via AP)
