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00:00:09This is TRT World, I'm Neil Harvey, and here are our headlines: Iran and
00:00:13Oman are finalizing an interim deal on commercial shipping through the straight of
00:00:17Holamus, but there are some remaining thorny issues, they include the lifting of a
00:00:21US Naval bloccade and transit fees.
00:00:24Iran seeking five to seven percent of cargo value,
00:00:28Oman has proposed 3%.
00:00:30meanwile Donald Trump's hinting a broader deal with Iran could be
00:00:33close.
00:00:35Yemen's Iran aligned hoothies have confirmed a missile attack
00:00:39on yet another Saudi linked oil tanker. The group says that vessel
00:00:43was targeted in the Gulf of Aden. On Wednesday, they also
00:00:46claim responsibility for attack a Saudi tanker off the coast of the Red
00:00:50Sea port of Yambu.
00:00:52Israel's military says two soldiers have been killed eight woundeds during combat
00:00:56Swiss people vote on this with a in southern Lebanon on the strikes on Wednesday were in retaliation toward
00:00:59Israel. described as hezball violations of the seas
00:01:02far. this comes as US broker
00:01:05peace talks between Israel and Lebanon, how are
00:01:08concluding today in Rome, the focus being on the next
00:01:11phase of a gradual Israeli withdraw from southern
00:01:13Lebanon.
00:01:16Israel's forces continue though to storm the calandia refugee camp in the
00:01:19occupied west bank with at least 16 Palestinians so far
00:01:23injured, 60 people have been
00:01:25is only in Switzerland, it's a reality in arrested during Thursday's rates.
00:01:29Uganda's parliament. improved deployment of troops to Gaza as part of a proposed
00:01:32international stabilization mission, the move following a direct
00:01:36request from President Donald Trump to President Yari
00:01:39Musevini. The force is part of a broader peace plan unveiled after the
00:01:43cease fire reached in October, it would oversee security and humanitarian
00:01:47aid efforts in Gaza.
00:01:50Three people have been killed in overnight strikes by Russia on Ukraine's eastern
00:01:54city of Balaclear in the Harky region. Rescue operations continue
00:01:57as teams struggle to clear the Debry. meanwile two people have
00:02:01been killed, five wounded in the Ukrainian drone strike on Russia's
00:02:04Briansk region
00:02:07and Miami's leaders in Thailand on an official visit as Bangkok
00:02:11pushes for re-engagement with its wartor neighbor and the regional block
00:02:14Asian, the Ama's leaders have been barred from Asyan summit
00:02:18since 2021 when Min Angling
00:02:21staged the coup against the elected government of Angsan
00:02:25Chi that led to a civil war killing an estimated 100
00:02:29thousand people.
00:02:34They headlines, do stay with us as the news continues.
00:03:09Courage or cowardis? Switzerland
00:03:12is thinking again about being
00:03:14neutral
00:03:17and the country's arms industry wants changes to the law so it can
00:03:21export weapons more easily.
00:03:24We are no longer allowed to sell weapons in in conflict
00:03:27countries.
00:03:30"what is the price of Swiss neutrality? is it helping
00:03:33others by being a peacemaker or simply helping
00:03:37itself?
00:03:41neutrality the swiss say doesn't mean they're not ready to
00:03:45defend themselves.
00:03:48i can hit the cast and that will show me the same. all this in a
00:03:52country where civilian gun ownership is one of the highest in the
00:03:55world.
00:04:04so the cost of sitting on the
00:04:05sideline, welcome to beyond borders,
00:04:20for many Swiss people, shooting is not only a sport, but also
00:04:24a way of showing they're ready to defend their
00:04:27country.
00:04:39the Swiss learns relatively quickly and early to
00:04:42use weapons. Already at a very young age, children
00:04:46have a different relationship with weapons, so it's
00:04:50not something you feel, oh dear, very dangerous,
00:04:53but rather you know it's part of the
00:04:56tradition. and if they have to fire those weapons
00:05:00in anger, it could
00:05:02be because as a soldier rather surprisingly tells us,
00:05:06the country's military is not up to the
00:05:09job.
00:05:13with material like tanks, vehicles, systems who will
00:05:16die out because they're so old, and right now we are
00:05:19already taking all system apart to maintain the
00:05:23systems we have right now, we have to to be at four guy, four
00:05:27people, four soldiers who will be trained at one light machine
00:05:30gun, we have to share all the time all the different
00:05:33material, we already share a lot of material and equipment with each
00:05:37others, but if the army doesn't have the right equipment we have to live with the
00:05:41consequences.
00:05:45"a former president of the Swiss National Council, who's running the shooting
00:05:49festival, says current rules on neutrality do not mean
00:05:53in deference to world events. He points out
00:05:56that Switzerland's imposing sanctions on Russia along
00:06:00with the European Union, which would not be allowed if the
00:06:03neutrality rules are tightened, and the
00:06:08referendum in September 2026."
00:06:14"as for the state of the country's military, we've just spoken to a
00:06:17soldier who tells us the army is falling apart with tanks
00:06:21and weapons and if if there was an
00:06:23invasion it would be very difficult to defend
00:06:27Switzerland, we need more investments in in weapons
00:06:31in the security, that's my opinion to, that's a
00:06:34reality, but it's not the reality
00:06:38a lot of countries in Europe, uh, but at the
00:06:41end we have..." to to to take priorities, but it's
00:06:45clearly that the army wants always small,
00:06:48if no, they wouldn't do the job. the one question I
00:06:51have, having spoken to people over quite a long
00:06:55time, is how can you export weapons to
00:06:58countries and yet still remain
00:07:01neutral? yeah, that's the big question that we
00:07:04have, but at the end it's always a difficult
00:07:08question between strict neutrality and
00:07:12between... uh to give
00:07:15more more possibilities to our
00:07:19enterprises in the army sector, just went like
00:07:22that, it's a balancing act, it's a balancing act, and
00:07:26yeah, switzerland normally is good on balancy
00:07:30acts, switzerland hasn't been involved in a foreign
00:07:34war for more than 200 years, but it hasn't
00:07:37always been as tranquil as it is
00:07:40today, years ago this castle was
00:07:44stormed and burned by local people who were worried that it had become
00:07:48a citadle for powerful foreign
00:07:50force.
00:07:53Attack!
00:07:59Swiss mercenaries dominated European battlefields for
00:08:03centuries, revolutionizing the way that wars were
00:08:06four, but some marching movements have
00:08:10certainly changed.
00:08:16"This event is build as a trucker festival, but is more
00:08:20country stomp, meets haybals and
00:08:22horsepower,
00:08:29here we find a stand where they're explaining the work of the
00:08:32country's international peacekeeping
00:08:34force, they're currently helping international missions in
00:08:38Korea, Kosovo, Bosnia and the Middle East as well
00:08:41as across a..." and africa, the work may
00:08:44still be allowed, even if the new neutrality law is
00:08:48passed,
00:08:51as an engineer, a digger driver, this soldier tells me
00:08:54he worked to make places that had been mined safe again and
00:08:58clear other munitions that have been left behind after
00:09:02conflict, yes he says he was
00:09:05armed, but that was only for
00:09:07self-defense,
00:09:12there is simply These activists want
00:09:15no army at all, they're also worried about what's
00:09:19called the war material act which would see rules
00:09:23on arms sold to foreign countries further
00:09:25relaxed despite swiss weapons exports already
00:09:29having gone up by 50% in
00:09:312025. The Swiss will vote on this in
00:09:35another referendum soon after the neutrality issue is
00:09:39decided. There shouldn't be any. it
00:09:43with war or with with weapons and with with death
00:09:47essentially, if you go to the um
00:09:49parliament that lobby of weapons seems
00:09:53to be very strong, i think they want to have the cake in 82 because they
00:09:57want to be neutral and saying we don't have anything to do with that, but we
00:10:00also want to profit. do the two things get tied
00:10:04together, the vote on neutrality and the war
00:10:08materials issue, do they
00:10:11join up? yes, absolutely, because
00:10:14it's the the right that wanted those two things, neutrality vote
00:10:18and raw material expert, and
00:10:21they say we have to be absolutely neutral, but they also... want
00:10:25us to be able to send guns to other countries so that doesn't
00:10:29really fit together. i think it's a huge
00:10:32hypocrisis that switzerland say always say we
00:10:35are the the le pays des droits de l'homme, les
00:10:38conventions de Genève for example, and at the
00:10:41same moment we we just send send war material to to
00:10:45countries and those materials are always used
00:10:48against the the civil, the
00:10:50population.
00:10:56"at the military base hosting the shooting festival is one of the Swiss
00:10:59weapons manufacturers that's pushing hard for the war
00:11:02material
00:11:05And the advantage of these weapons is that they take both magazines,
00:11:09the Swiss magazine and the magazine
00:11:11from time to time,
00:11:14we are no longer allowed to sell weapons in conflict countries, yes, but it is very
00:11:17difficult to know which
00:11:21countries are in conflicts abroad."
00:11:25Yeah, but that doesn't depend on me, but they know
00:11:29it above.
00:11:32stock answer as to why there has to be a strong weapons industry in
00:11:36the country is that if there's an attack it can't take for
00:11:40granted that help would come from anyone
00:11:43outside it is kind of bunker
00:11:46mentality and there's plenty of that here in
00:11:50real concrete form what do you call
00:11:53it a Luftschutzkeller?
00:11:56basement room in this house where a family could be
00:11:59safe, it's heavy, really
00:12:01heavy, it's thick like that, wow, that now
00:12:05that's that's massive, look at
00:12:08that, so you would come down
00:12:11here, that's the idea, in case of real
00:12:14danger is this one, you now it's a a thing that has to be
00:12:17closed, yeah, in uh case of emergency, and this
00:12:21one make sure that we have ventilation inside and that we have air
00:12:25inside and at the moment you've got, well,
00:12:29just just sports equipment mostly, it's sports equipment, it's you
00:12:32know suitcases that we don't need at the
00:12:35moment, and and clothes and
00:12:37whatsoever, we have to make sure that it can be
00:12:40used, so you have to check it, yeah, we have to check it, the
00:12:44last uh check by the authority was about three
00:12:47years
00:12:50ago, there is said to be enough bunkers in the country for every man,
00:12:54woman and child, if there's
00:12:55trouble,
00:12:59they're celebrating 20 years of this one being privately
00:13:02owned, it was built during the second world war as an
00:13:06army lookout post, a little
00:13:09work and it could be a shelter if needed, now
00:13:13it's certainly not to my taste, this is the bunker, it's
00:13:16gas-tight,
00:13:21tight, certainly bulletproof under the
00:13:23infrastructure where you can cook, sleep, there are
00:13:27water reservoirs,
00:13:32deep inside a swiss mountainside with
00:13:34village on the plane below, an old army bunker, they would have been behind here, the
00:13:38soldiers firing anybody trying to attack them, they would have
00:13:42stood behind this great big steel door, poking explosives,
00:13:45grenades perhaps through that hole, 1
00:13:48kilometer of tunnels down here, it is 9 degrees
00:13:52where we are, it is 31 degrees,
00:13:55above, it is a different
00:13:57world.
00:14:00It was in use until the end of the cold
00:14:02war.
00:14:08These decommissioned weapons are kept in locked store
00:14:11room. Single shot is fired
00:14:13with medium support fire, you shoot
00:14:16forward and then here, then it is
00:14:20pressed down and you can shoot the whole series,
00:14:22so.
00:14:55that's privately owned and is described as an artillery fortress
00:14:59able to house 600
00:15:01soldiers.
00:15:05the Swiss army built 2200 bunkers, that's one of the
00:15:08reasons why Hitler never came, because the entry price was too
00:15:12high.
00:15:14if there's an invasion, if Switzerland is bombed, the owner
00:15:18says it's just for him and his
00:15:20family. family, my family, and the town, well no, I mean
00:15:24not. We don't want to have too many people in here.
00:15:53the 85 mes under the rock
00:15:55now,
00:15:57it was all built in the cold war, so it would pull all the poison, they
00:16:01want to make the place nuclear attack proof, safest place in the world right
00:16:04now.
00:16:08that's it cost you a fortune is it? yeah, yeah, got a lot of money, it's a hobby,
00:16:12people, people collect lamborghinis, i got a
00:16:14fortress,
00:16:24oh wow, wow, this is dark, this
00:16:27is
00:16:28dark,
00:16:32are you proud of Switzerland's neutrality? well, yeah, I hope you're
00:16:36going to keep it. Looks like we going to lose it if you join the
00:16:39EU,
00:16:43and took 10 soldiers to man a cannon, this thing is 48
00:16:47kilograms,
00:16:51I can hit the cast and shine with this thing.
00:17:37how to really defend, an army
00:17:41would probably be powerless anyway,
00:17:43I hope I'll be able to stay
00:17:46for a long time and it will be extremely
00:17:50difficult.
00:17:52This will
00:18:01stand and
00:18:03parties, but that we are neutral can mediate between the poles.
00:18:07and that's important in the
00:18:11foreground, that's a double-edged
00:18:14sword, we are
00:18:17just world, we are not
00:18:21pacifists, so I think we also need to
00:18:25find a middle ground, we need
00:18:28our own arms industry and also to
00:18:32be able to sell to problematic places
00:18:34now and then.
00:18:37to us many times is that with Switzerland neutral, it can stand
00:18:41apart and bring waring parties together, but can
00:18:44it do that if it's selling more and more weapons
00:18:48abroad?
00:18:50if you would describe neutality as it is now in Switzerland, it has
00:18:54four characteristics: it's permanent, it's
00:18:58backed by military force, it's internationally
00:19:01recognized and it is deeply rooted in Swiss
00:19:05history and identity, but
00:19:07instrument, it is a tool that Switzerland uses in
00:19:11order to pursue its objectives of prosperity, of peace,
00:19:15of sustainability. 2025, Swiss
00:19:18arms exports, weapons exports were around
00:19:21one and a quarter billion dollars. It had gone up considerably from the year
00:19:25before, so there's a market there, and with more and more
00:19:27countries needing more and more weapons because it's a dangerous
00:19:30world, it would make sense for
00:19:33Switzerland uh from a profit point of view to
00:19:36exploit. that is that what's being done? well,
00:19:40i think we have to understand the swis economy a little bit better, i think the weapons
00:19:44exports are not critical for this economy, so the interest in
00:19:47having weapons industry is not the economy, that's a security
00:19:51benefit, because if you would engage in a war and you don't have your
00:19:54own weapons industry, that puts you in a much more difficult situation. how does
00:19:58it benefit Switzerland security to sell tier gas to the United
00:20:02States that is used in the suppression of immigrant rants in
00:20:05Minneapolis and sell assault rifles to Saudi
00:20:09Arabia, well, I do not know these specific cases, but
00:20:13both cases are the immigrants, Swiss
00:20:16per gas was used in the ice suppression of these rights
00:20:19in in Minneapolis, every country is exporting products
00:20:23who are sometimes used in in a nice manner, sometimes in a less nice
00:20:27manner, are you saying you have rules, yes, which you would like to see
00:20:31implemented, but you have no way of absolutely
00:20:34ascertaining that the people you sell these to aren't. breakers
00:20:38themselves, if if you could impose 100% respect of
00:20:41rules, then you wouldn't have mer, you wouldn't have any traffic incidents,
00:20:45what you can do as a state to do undertake the maximum efforts, all your
00:20:48efforts to... supply to prevent that, and I think
00:20:52Switzerland undertakes really the measures to prevent that these arms
00:20:56are ending up in a
00:20:57conflict.
00:21:01The days of swiss mercenary might are being showcased in the grounds of
00:21:04this museum, and it's here that we meet a man who's just
00:21:08spent two years making a film about Switzerland's position on
00:21:12neutrality. He says he found a sense of we're
00:21:16better because we're neutral. To mean
00:21:19neutrality. is a trademark, is
00:21:22this is the only thing we have, it's a kind of um soft power
00:21:25for switzerland, but nobody has definition, a
00:21:29strict definition of it, and
00:21:31probably that's the beauty of it, but
00:21:35now it became too broad, I would
00:21:38say,
00:21:40we still are playing with the rules that we used to
00:21:43play, and now we need to redefine it, can you
00:21:47export arms, can you? can you
00:21:50make some profits about arms and still be neutral? can
00:21:53you put some sanctions regarding some countries and remain
00:21:57neutral? that the kind of question that we need to address
00:22:00and to me it's not possible to be
00:22:04neutral, otherwise we could
00:22:08have invited hitler to negotiate
00:22:11during the second world war at the same level at the
00:22:13idealies. so it's not, it's not
00:22:17possible to be neutral.
00:22:29Unfortunately, the Federal Council, by participating in sanctions against
00:22:32Russia, has trampled Swiss neutrality
00:22:36underfoot and severely damaged our
00:22:38credibility. If this fatal
00:22:42flirtation with NATO continues,
00:22:45Switzerland risks direct military
00:22:49confrontation.
00:23:50and neutrality is gone and freedom is also
00:23:53gone from the country, independence is gone
00:23:57and lake geneva there's a man with completely the opposite
00:24:00view, we saw that somehow the
00:24:04far right were taking over the
00:24:07discussion on what neutrality is, they're trying to say it
00:24:11means cooperation with nobody,
00:24:14sanctions against nobody, so whatever happens
00:24:18independent of which type of war... 'um, we just do
00:24:21nothing, say nothing, and make business with everyone, and that's not just about
00:24:25being peaceful, is it? that's sometimes about sort of saying, this way I look after
00:24:29myself, yes, but what triggered us most is that they were saying
00:24:33that this is the traditional neutrality, and it's not, they made out of it
00:24:36some sort of a religion, and now they're believers and not
00:24:40clear thinking people. two
00:24:43different versions of neutrality then to be voted on, one
00:24:47that says, yes, we will have armed forces'. we will look out
00:24:51only for ourselves and one that says our
00:24:54neutrality serves a purpose for others too, and we should
00:24:58be able to change depending on what's happening in the
00:25:00world. what role should Switzerland
00:25:04play? should it ally itself with one
00:25:07block against the other, or should it offer to the world a
00:25:10platform which could contribute to peace? we
00:25:14are a small economy compared to the US or the
00:25:17UK, but we're a trusted country. "and that's one
00:25:20of a cards, but on the other hand, you keep your
00:25:23credibility, because if you want all the
00:25:26parties to come to the negotiating table, they need
00:25:29to trust the mediator. you are
00:25:33not neutral because you declare that you're
00:25:35neutral. you're only neutral when the rest of the
00:25:39world perceive you or believe that you're neutral, and that's
00:25:43why we should be extremely careful and that's why it's in very, very, very difficult
00:25:47game to play."
00:25:52Perhaps it's all case of too much
00:25:54introspection, but there are some for whom this matters a
00:25:58daily basis, in this case the Ukrainian and...
00:26:02and diaspora, conflict back home is never
00:26:06ending concern,
00:26:09people experience horrible things and you can do
00:26:11nothing. do you have a
00:26:14view on whether Switzerland should
00:26:18be more involved in helping with
00:26:21the uh conflict? i don't think that they want
00:26:25not to be involved, you know they they help us lot. i always
00:26:29keep in mind that i am in a country of people who don't owe me.
00:26:32anything and yet they opened the houses for
00:26:35us, they invited us and it would
00:26:38be ungrateful to
00:26:40be to to expect that people os
00:26:43anything,
00:26:46from one or other way you need to take sides, even when you say that you are
00:26:49neutral, you are still taking a side, right? one thing that i appreciate for
00:26:53example with swiss that they don't take neutrality from
00:26:57the perspective of indifference or from an emotional
00:27:00swing, and they...
00:27:33This is not neutrality for me, if it's about whether women are still
00:27:37slaughtered, children are born and
00:27:39have to
00:27:42survive in miserable circumstances.
00:27:46If you even question whether you can
00:27:49be neutral, it's ridiculous.
00:27:52It's political that
00:27:55in in in the minds of many
00:27:59decides and not the word that says it.
00:28:03Neutrality for me is moral neutrality. I must have a
00:28:06moral stance in the
00:28:10same measure between the misery
00:28:13of Ukraine and the misery of the
00:28:15Palestinians.
00:28:21Austria, Ireland, Costa Rica, Turkmenistan,
00:28:25Lichtenstein, Andora and quite a few
00:28:28others are all neutral to some extent, and at times the
00:28:31united. states has been two,
00:28:34Switzerland is not
00:28:36alone,
00:28:39but claiming to be neutral at the same time as wanting to sell more
00:28:42guns and tanks abroad, is what some
00:28:45observers find hard to
00:28:47reconcile,
00:28:52it is certainly food for
00:28:54thought.
00:30:08This is TRT World, I'm Neil Harvey and here are headlines: Iran and
00:30:12Oman are finalizing an interim deal on commercial shipping through the
00:30:15straight of Horamouz, but there are some remaining thorny issues, they include the
00:30:19lifting of a US Naval blockade and transit
00:30:23fees. Iran seeking five to seven percent of cargo
00:30:26value. A man has proposed 3%, meanwile Donald
00:30:29Trump's hinting a broader deal with Iran could be collected.
00:30:34Yemen's Iran aligned hoothies have confirmed a missile attack
00:30:38on yet another Saudi linked oil tanker. The group says that vessel
00:30:41was targeted in the Gulf of Aden. On Wednesday they also
00:30:45claim responsibility for attack a Saudi tanker off the coast of the Red
00:30:48Sea port of Yambu.
00:30:51Israel's military says two soldiers have been killed eight wounded during combat in
00:30:55southern Lebanon on the strikes on Wednesday were in retaliation to what Israel
00:30:58described as Hezballah.