CAIRO, March 25 (Xinhua) -- Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul-Gheit condemned on Monday U.S. President Donald Trump's recognition of the Syrian Golan Heights as Israeli territory.

Aboul-Gheit said in a statement that this proclamation is void and a blatant violation of the international law.

"The U.S. declaration will not change the legal status of the Golan Heights as an occupied Syrian territory," he stressed, adding that "legitimizing the occupation is a new approach in the U.S. foreign policy."

Earlier in the day, Trump signed a document recognizing the Golan Heights as Israeli territory in a White House ceremony attended by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

He affirmed that the Arab League rejects this approach and backs the Syrian right to retrieve its occupied lands.

Israel seized the Golan Heights in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed it in the 1980s, in a move never recognized by the international community.

Recognizing the Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights has been a recent demand by Netanyahu, which comes months after the Trump administration moved the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.