BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 4. Switzerland is
ready to support Azerbaijan in the field of humanitarian demining,
Member of the Federal Council of Switzerland and Head of the
Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, OSCE Chairperson-in-Office,
Ignazio Cassis, told reporters on the sidelines of a joint briefing
with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov in Baku today,
Trend's
correspondent reports from the event.
According to Cassis, Switzerland has extensive experience in
humanitarian demining and provides support to various countries in
this area.
He noted that Switzerland is not active in the military, but
only in the humanitarian demining field, and this is due to the
country's policy of neutrality.
"Humanitarian demining is a very important direction for
Switzerland. We have allocated 100 million Swiss francs to support
the demining of Ukrainian territories. This amount is equivalent to
about $120 million and makes us the third largest donor to Ukraine
in this area," he explained.
The minister pointed out that this is just one example, and
Switzerland participates in humanitarian demining projects in many
countries where the mine threat persists even 30-50 years after the
end of the wars.
"The mine threat remains for many years. It sometimes takes
decades to clear mines so that the land can be used again for
agriculture, people can live safely, and children can play
comfortably," Cassis emphasized.
He added that the mine issue is also one of the important topics
for the OSCE. However, he said that he couldn't provide precise
information about specific projects currently being implemented
between the OSCE and Azerbaijan in this area.
