Foreign ministry No. 2 to stand down

Yves Rossier, Swiss Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, has asked Swiss Foreign Ministry Didier Burkhalter to relocate him to a diplomatic post. A foreign ministry spokesman on Friday confirmed a report in the Tages-Anzeiger newspaper. Burkhalter said he would advise on the new appointments – including Rossier’s new post – in autumn, according to an internal note to foreign ministry staff seen by the Swiss News Agency. Rossier, 55, was named the foreign ministry’s number two at the beginning of 2012. He was Switzerland’s top negotiator for talks on institutional issues with the European Union until Jacques de Watteville was handed the role last August. He then focused increasingly on Swiss relations with countries in the Middle East. In April he made an official visit to Baghdad, Najaf and Erbil in Iraq – the first high-level visit to Iraq by a senior Swiss diplomat for over a decade. Rossier, a lawyer by training, had studied at the University of Fribourg, ...