Photo: Official website of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) / Béatrice Devènes

BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 4. Switzerland is ready to support Azerbaijan in the field of humanitarian demining, Member of the Federal Council of Switzerland and Head of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Ignazio Cassis, told reporters on the sidelines of a joint briefing with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov in Baku today, Trend's correspondent reports from the event.

According to Cassis, Switzerland has extensive experience in humanitarian demining and provides support to various countries in this area.

He noted that Switzerland is not active in the military, but only in the humanitarian demining field, and this is due to the country's policy of neutrality.

"Humanitarian demining is a very important direction for Switzerland. We have allocated 100 million Swiss francs to support the demining of Ukrainian territories. This amount is equivalent to about $120 million and makes us the third largest donor to Ukraine in this area," he explained.

The minister pointed out that this is just one example, and Switzerland participates in humanitarian demining projects in many countries where the mine threat persists even 30-50 years after the end of the wars.

"The mine threat remains for many years. It sometimes takes decades to clear mines so that the land can be used again for agriculture, people can live safely, and children can play comfortably," Cassis emphasized.

He added that the mine issue is also one of the important topics for the OSCE. However, he said that he couldn't provide precise information about specific projects currently being implemented between the OSCE and Azerbaijan in this area.