Calmy-Rey calls for humanitarian awareness
Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey has underlined the importance of humanitarian access to the Gaza Strip at a meeting with Israel’s Shimon Peres.
Calmy-Rey’s talks with the Israeli deputy prime minister on Monday came after she visited Israel’s controversial security barrier.
On the fifth day of her fact-finding trip to Israel and the Palestinian territories, Calmy-Rey said her talks with Peres had concentrated on the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, planned for later this year.
At a news briefing afterwards, she said the plan would only be successful if humanitarian issues were guaranteed. That meant improving humanitarian access to the territory.
Calmy-Rey said that Peres had expressed “interest” in the Swiss position.
Security barrier
Earlier in the day, the foreign minister was shown parts of the security barrier south and east of Jerusalem by Colonel Danny Tirza, the official in charge of planning the barrier’s route.
During the entire visit, which took place under pouring rain, Calmy-Rey made no comment, according to a journalist from the Swiss News Agency.
Tirza intimated that the security barrier, which reaches more than seven metres in places, might be temporary.
Palestinians have called the barrier, which encroaches heavily into the territories, the “wall of apartheid”. They also accuse Israel of creating de facto borders by annexing several settlements on the West Bank.
However, Israel has repeatedly said that the barrier aims to protect it against extremists and argues that its construction has reduced the number of attacks by 80 per cent.
Demand to dismantle
The International Court of Justice in The Hague demanded last July that the barrier be dismantled, ruling that it breached international law.
Switzerland has a mandate from the United Nations General Assembly to write a report on international humanitarian law in connection with the security barrier.
During her trip to Israel, Calmy-Rey did not have an opportunity to hold talks with the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon.
A commentator working for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Sharon had wanted to show his displeasure over Switzerland’s support for the Geneva Initiative, an unofficial peace plan heavily criticised by the Israeli government.
Calmy-Rey finishes her official visit to Israel on Tuesday and will return to Switzerland after making a stopover on Wednesday in Cairo for talks with her Egyptian counterpart, Ahmed Aboul Gheit.
swissinfo with agencies
Israel’s security barrier is planned to be about 600 kilometres long and is more than seven metres high in places.
In February last year, Switzerland was one of a number of countries that called on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to judge its legality.
The ICJ ruled last July that the barrier was “contrary to international law” and called for it to be pulled down.
Micheline Calmy-Rey is on her first visit to Israel. The last trip by a Swiss foreign minister dates back to 2001.
The volume of trade between Israel and Switzerland stands at SFr2.2 billion ($1.8 billion).
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