Middle East and Ukraine are focus of Ignazio Cassis' trip to North America

Press releases, 25.10.2024

Federal Councillor Ignazio Cassis, the head of the FDFA, will spend two days in the United States and Canada on 29 and 30 October 2024. As part of Switzerland's October presidency of the UN Security Council, he will chair a high-level debate on the Middle East in New York on 29 October. From there, he will travel on to Montreal, where a follow-up conference to the June 2024 Summit for Peace in Ukraine at the Bürgenstock resort will be held on 30 October. In Montreal, the focus will be on humanitarian aspects in connection with the search for a peaceful solution to the conflict. Mr. Cassis will hold bilateral talks in Montreal, including with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha.

In New York on 29 October, Mr Cassis will chair an open debate of the UN Security Council on the situation in the Middle East. The high-level debate, in which non-Security Council members can also take the floor, takes place every three months, this time under the Swiss presidency. The meeting will be dedicated to the Middle East conflict. The situation has worsened significantly since Hamas' acts of terror against Israel on 7 October 2023: 97 hostages are still being held by Hamas, hostilities in Gaza are continuing, innumerable civilians have been killed and the humanitarian situation of the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip is catastrophic. The spread of the conflict poses a serious threat to peace and security in the entire region.  Mr Cassis will also use his stay in New York to hold bilateral talks.

After New York, Mr Cassis will go to Canada, where a Ministerial Conference on the Human Dimension of Ukraine's Peace Formula will take place in Montreal on 30 and 31 October. Humanitarian aspects as part of a just and lasting peace were already a key topic at the Summit for Peace in Ukraine at the Bürgenstock resort in June 2024. The joint communiqué of the Bürgenstock summit, which 95 states and organisations have joined to date, called for the exchange of all prisoners of war between Russia and Ukraine and the return of all deported children and political prisoners to Ukraine. Before leaving the summit, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that Canada would be organising a conference to follow up on the Bürgenstock event and focus on the humanitarian dimension.

Mr. Cassis will hold bilateral talks in Montreal, including with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha.


Address for enquiries:

FDFA Communication
Federal Palace West Wing
CH-3003 Bern, Switzerland
Tel. Press service: +41 58 460 55 55
E-mail: kommunikation@eda.admin.ch
Twitter: @SwissMFA


Publisher:

Federal Department of Foreign Affairs