Swiss foreign minister plans Russia visit

Mr Cassis announces plans to visit Russia in person Keystone-SDA

Swiss foreign minister Ignazio Cassis intends to make a personal visit to Moscow as part of Switzerland's chairmanship of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

+ Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

Cassis stated his intent on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos. No date has been given, as a visit would depend on the situation in Ukraine.

+ Is OSCE still relevant to the world?

Cassis has not visited Russia since June 2019. Ueli Maurer, then president of the confederation, went there in November of the same year. Less than three years later, Moscow invaded Ukraine.

“The primary aim of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is to end the war in Ukraine”, Cassis told the press. He also intends to visit Kiev and Washington, but gave no further details about a date.

The aim is to clarify the role of the organisation, chaired this year by Switzerland, so as to be “ready when the time comes”.

“It is essential that if a ceasefire is agreed in a few days’ time, a group of OSCE specialists should be able to go to the region within 48 hours,” said Cassis.

Join the debate:

Translated from French by AI/mga

How we work

We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.  

Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.

If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at [e-mail]