Former Defence Minister Samuel Schmid has a new mission, investigating with the European Union the causes of the conflict last year between Russia and Georgia.
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Schmid, who stepped down at the end of 2008, is now part of the Senior Advisory Board of the EU’s independent commission on the issue.
The experts, who met for the first time in Geneva on Monday, also include former foreign ministers of Germany and Austria, Joschka Fischer and Ursula Plassnik, and the former president of the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross, Cornelio Sommaruga.
Swiss diplomat Heidi Tagliavini is leading the European Union’s investigation into the chain of events in the August conflict over Georgia’s rebel South Ossetia.
Tagliavini has extensive regional knowledge and experience. She was deputy head of the UN observer mission in Georgia (1998-1999), the Swiss ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina (2001-2002) and a member of the first Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) assistance group to Chechnya (1995).
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Swiss step in to ease Caucasus tensions
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Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey was in Georgia on Monday to finalise a Good Offices agreement which enables Switzerland to act as a third party “channel of communication” between the two governments. The same protecting power mandate was signed with Russia in December. The two sides severed diplomatic ties after Russian troops entered Georgia in August…
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Swiss law professor Walter Kälin, who has just returned from a four-day trip to Georgia, told swissinfo that while he was “cautiously optimistic” about people returning home, the ongoing militia violence and looting in the buffer zones were “inacceptable”. On Monday Russian forces stepped up preparations to withdraw from bases and checkpoints surrounding two separatist…
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A statement said it had approved an official request made by Russia and details would be discussed with Georgia and Russia in the coming days. Russian ties to the former Soviet republic were severed after the August conflict over the breakaway region of South Ossetia. Switzerland already represents the interests of the United States in…
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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.