Peace talks may include war criminals, says top ex-Swiss diplomat
Heidi Tagliavini, a former Swiss diplomat in Russia, says it is crucial to negotiate even with war criminals to try to end armed conflicts.
Tagliavini who was also a senior negotiator for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said that during her 20-year career as Swiss diplomat she had negotiated several times with people who “had blood on their hands”.
In some cases, it was possible to appeal to their conscience even if they at first seemed to have no morals, she said in an interview published in the newspapers of the Tamedia group on Wednesday.
It allowed to have a “foot in the door”, she added. She referred to her experience in conflicts in Chechnya, Georgia and Ukraine.
Asked if the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, is a likeable person, she said all people must be measured by their actions and that he appeared “very controlled” when she met him on several occasions during her diplomatic career between 1982 to 2015.
Tagliavini also explained that is a diplomatic custom to greet negotiating partners with a smile, but she added that public photographs of such meetings are often misread by the public.
Over the past few months, press photographs from meetings between top Russian diplomats and the Swiss foreign minister and the head of the Swiss-led International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) respectively prompted public criticism.
In compliance with the JTI standards
More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here. Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.