President of Switzerland supports ban on arms supplies to Ukraine

Authored by ukrinform.net and submitted by Espressodimare
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President of the Swiss Confederation Alain Berset says that Switzerland’s neutrality is more important than ever which does not allow the country to send weapons to Ukraine.

"The government's position is clear, it also corresponds to my personal position: Swiss weapons must not be used in wars," Berset told Neue Zueriche Zeitung am Sonntag in an interview, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

According to him, Bern's policy is based on "commitment to peace, humanitarian law, mediation where possible."

The President emphasized that Switzerland seeks to be present wherever it can contribute to mediation and peace. He also considers it necessary to hold negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, and "the sooner, the better."

As reported, the Swiss government previously stated that it would not change its policy on the ban on the transfer of Swiss-made weapons to third countries, despite pressure from European countries regarding their supply to Ukraine. In January, two parliamentary committees in Switzerland recommended relaxing the rules. However, after the meeting on March 10, the government rejected this call.

The years-long tradition of neutrality became the subject of debate after the Russian Federation's full-scale invasion of Ukraine and calls from European partners to provide ammunition and allow the re-export of equipment with Swiss spare parts.

Switzerland rejected requests from Germany, Spain, and Denmark referring to the Act on War Materiel which prohibits any re-export if a recipient country is in an international armed conflict.

At the same time, Switzerland joined many European sanctions against the Russian Federation.

failure_of_a_cow on March 13rd, 2023 at 02:21 UTC »

The quote from the article is:

The government's position is clear, it also corresponds to my personal position: Swiss weapons must not be used in wars

Which raises the question: When should Swiss weapons be used? What is the point of Swiss weapons, if not to defend from invasion? Why do they exist at all?

BlueInfinity2021 on March 13rd, 2023 at 00:28 UTC »

The biggest lesson from this is that the Swiss arms industry including any subsidiaries outside of Switzerland should only be allowed to make arms for use by the Swiss military.

It's cool if they want to remain neutral but they should never have made arms for other countries if that's the case.

Happy-Dress1179 on March 12nd, 2023 at 23:57 UTC »

True to Swiss values.