Swiss offer to mediate in N Korea crisis

Switzerland has offered to mediate with North Korea as tension rises on the Korean peninsula following UN sanctions imposed in response to a North Korean nuclear weapon test in February. The Swiss foreign ministry recently made contact with the North Korean authorities, but there are no current plans for any talks, a spokeswoman said. "Switzerland is willing to contribute to a de-escalation on the Korean peninsula and is always willing to help find a solution, if this is the wish of the parties, such as hosting meetings between them," she said in an emailed statement. North Korea has issued increasingly strident warnings of imminent war with South Korea and the US, urging diplomats on Friday to consider leaving Pyongyang. Swiss media say that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, who took over in December 2011 after the death of his father Kim Jong-il, apparently spent several years in Switzerland being educated under a pseudonym. REUTERS

Neutral Switzerland often hosts peace talks and mediates in international conflicts, more recently between Russia and Ukraine and between the US and Iran and Cuba.

The Swiss foreign ministry said it had been involved in more than 15 sets of peace negotiations in the past seven years, including in Sudan, Colombia, Sri Lanka, Uganda and Nepal.

Former Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey, who in 2003 became the first foreign government official to cross the demarcation line separating North and South Korea, said Pyongyang's wishes had not changed much since then. "For North Korea, symbols are very important," she told the SonntagsZeitung newspaper in an interview. "What the North Koreans still want is recognition and security guarantees from the US."

Five Swiss and five Swedish officers monitor the demilitarised zone between the North and South. Urs Gerber, the Swiss head of the operation, said not much has changed in recent months. "We are just monitoring the situation more intensively," he also told the SonntagsZeitung.