Today, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the National Community Abroad, Ahmed Attaf, received a phone call from his Swiss counterpart, Ignacio Cassis.
According to the statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this phone call focused on the latest developments recorded in the file related to the judicial prosecutions taken against retired Major General Khaled Nizar, which is the referral of this case by the Swiss Public Prosecution to the Federal Criminal Court accompanied by an indictment.
In this regard, and in response to the statements of his Swiss counterpart, in which he expressed the position of the Swiss government on this issue, Minister Ahmed Attaf emphasized, first of all, three main facts:
The first factor: The independence of the judiciary does not justify irresponsibility, and that any judicial system cannot give itself the absolute right to rule on the policies of an independent and sovereign state.
The second fact: Since the beginning of this case, Algeria has formed a conviction, which has strengthened over time, that Swiss justice has provided, with extreme disdain, a platform for terrorists and their allies and supporters to attempt to discredit the honorable struggle that our country has waged against terrorism, and to tarnish the image and memory of those who fell in confronting it.
The third given: With the same disregard, Swiss justice makes a retrospective reading of the history of our country during the nineties, through disgraceful and unfounded accusations, and inappropriate and inappropriate comparisons, through blatant distortions that make it lose its credibility.
Regarding the content, the head of Algerian diplomacy stressed that the international community as a whole recognizes the heroic struggle that Algeria waged alone against terrorism during the 1990s, and that our country’s role and experience in this field received widespread support and praise at the regional and international levels.
In this regard, the minister recalled that Algeria is a leading country at the level of the African Union in the field of preventing and combating terrorism, and that our country is preparing, within the framework of its election in the UN Security Council, to assume the presidency of two sub-committees of the Council on the issue of terrorism, and that Algeria will soon chair it, jointly with the United States. American conference on combating terrorism in Africa. He pointed out in particular that it seems that the entire world recognizes that Algeria is fighting terrorism, except for the Swiss judiciary.
Based on these data, Minister Ahmed Ataf expressed his regret over this reactionary reading by the Swiss justice regarding the heroism of the struggle waged by Algeria alone against terrorism. He pointed to the uniqueness of the current situation, which allowed an organization of former terrorists and their allies to use Swiss justice to prosecute the Algerian state.
Finally, he stressed that Algeria considers it unacceptable for Swiss justice to give itself the right to issue rulings on the political options of an independent and sovereign state in matters of national security.
In conclusion, after the head of Algerian diplomacy expressed the steadfastness of Algeria’s position and its gratitude to Switzerland regarding the role it played in restoring our country’s independence, he indicated that this issue had reached unacceptable and intolerable limits, and that the Algerian government was determined to draw all the results. , including those that are far from desirable in the future of Algerian-Swiss relations, expressing the hope that every effort will be made to avoid that this issue drags relations between Algeria and Switzerland towards an undesirable and irreparable path.
