Switzerland states conditions for recognizing Palestine are not yet met
Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter stated on Monday that the conditions for recognizing Palestine have not yet been met, emphasizing the need for a permanent ceasefire and a stable government.
"We feel that there are some conditions that have to be fulfilled, like all the hostages must return home, and also the dead bodies. There must be a permanent ceasefire, there must be a plan for peace," she said in response to a question by Anadolu during a press conference with the Foreign Press Association in Bern, News.Az reports.
Recognition, she said, "may come one day… when the conditions are fulfilled, but there must also be really a stable government, elections and so on."
Asked about whether Switzerland thinks the genocide criteria have been met in Gaza, Keller-Sutter said: "Switzerland condemns every violation of international law. So we condemned the disproportionate intervention of Israel, as well as the terrorist attack of Hamas."
She added: "If there is a genocide or not, will be decided by international courts."
Asked by Anadolu about the recent Zurich canton's refusal to accept wounded children from Gaza for medical care, she stressed that such decisions fall under cantonal, not federal, authority.
Currently, seven children from the Gaza Strip have been receiving treatment in pediatric hospitals across the cantons of Geneva, Vaud, Ticino, Basel-Stadt, Lucerne and St. Gallen. Another 13 children and their relatives are expected to arrive in November.
"This is very natural in Switzerland. The Swiss Confederation, the federal government, doesn't have any hospitals. Health is an issue of cantons, and so if the federal government ... decides to take children from Palestine to Switzerland to give them health care, here they have ... to go and ask the cantons. And some cantons agree, and others don't," the president said. "It's up to them, and it's their field of competence, and they can decide. And we don't comment on decisions of cantons."
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