Swiss Ambassador to US embarks on tour of Arkansas

This week, Urs Ziswiler, who has served as Swiss Ambassador to the US since 2006, visits Clinton’s home state Arkansas to meet with leaders, lecture at universities and tour its Swiss-influenced wine region. He spoke Tuesday night at the Clinton School for Public Service – the only school of its kind in the country.

United States Congressman Vic Snyder of Arkansas invited the ambassador to the state. Snyder is part of the Friends of Switzerland caucus, established in 2003 in recognition of strong ties between the two countries. More than one million Americans have Swiss heritage.

Clinton and his wife, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, have always had strong Swiss connections. Bill Clinton often visited as president and last visited the country in January when he attended the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Hillary Rodham Clinton has traveled to Switzerland twice since becoming secretary of state in January 2009. Last October, she made a historic visit
to Zurich where she attended the signing of two protocols between the governments of Turkey and Armenia.

Switzerland also serves as the United State’s liaison to Iran and Cuba.

“We have always had excellent relations with any administration,” Ziswiler told Swisster. “There’s a mutual trust on both sides.”

He conceded that the country disagreed with the United States’ invasion of Iraq and holding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay during the Bush Administration.

“Both issues changed radically with the new administration,” Ziswiler said. “Even if leaving Iraq and Guantanamo takes longer than planned.”

Switzerland will soon receive two brothers from China’s Muslin Uighur minority who had been cleared for release from Guantanamo but feared persecution if they returned to China. Ziswiler said the transfer of the two brothers will occur in a few weeks.

“We do not only want to be critical, we want to be part of the solution,” he said of Guantanamo.

The United States and Switzerland share other major areas of concern such as climate change and the financial sector. The United States should look at climate change as a business opportunity as well as security issue and a humanitarian concern, Ziswiler said.

“If we continue, 50 to 60 percent of Switzerland’s glaciers will disappear by the end of the century,” he said.

Ziswiler told the crowd that public transportation (especially railway networks) is critical to fight climate change. Unlike Europe, the United States has been slow to create the needed infrastructure for train travel.

Coincidently, the event was held in a refurbished historic train depot, which Clinton’s architects have restored for his school.

Ziswiler touched on the complexity of Muslims in Switzerland, terrorism linked to Islamic extremists and the heated controversy over the country’s ban of a further construction of minarets.

“The phenomenon is not Swiss only,” he said.

Migration and the influx of immigrants is perhaps where the two countries align the most. Both have always been havens of refuge.

Neither country would have its respective heritages if not for immigrants who brought their traditions and assimilated into their new lives. “The Swiss have a tendency to forget that,” Ziswiler said, citing the Huguenots and their watch making as an example.

A Muslim student attending the Clinton School from Indonesia asked Ziswiler about Iran’s possibility of acquiring a nuclear bomb. He called it “a delicate question.”

“It’s in nobody’s interest, a Muslim country or anyone else, that Iran is getting nuclear power, or having a nuclear bomb,” he said. “It’s very dangerous for
countries like Israel. We do not want them to have a bomb.”

The diplomat sees a future connection between Switzerland and the William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock.

He wants the library to host the Swiss embassy’s “Think Swiss Climate Trail Exhibition” and a symposium about climate change. Former president Clinton’s museum is the first presidential library that is green certified.

“The Clinton Library would be a great venue,” Ziswiler told Swisster.

Switzerland is the sixth largest investor in the United States with an estimated 150 billion dollars invested yearly by 500 Swiss companies. In turn, 650 US
companies are now in Switzerland with internet giants Google, eBay and Yahoo recently selecting the country for European headquarters.

Such connections make the two countries “very close allies” and indelibly tied to each other’s successes and failures. Ziswiler cited the recent battle between Washington and Bern regarding tax evasion and the collapse of international banks over subprime mortgages as examples.

Ziswiler also said he was excited to visit Wiederkehr Wine Cellars, settled by Swiss and German immigrants in the 1800s.

Near the cellars in a small village cemetery is a priest tombstone who shares the ambassador’s surname. Ziswiler said he is eager to hear the man’s story from the winery’s owner.

“That will be the most exciting and emotional part of my visit, to try and find out the Swiss roots,” he told Swisster.