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The portrait of federal councilor Viola Amherd was unveiled on Friday along with dozens of others in New York’s Times Square. The event was held in honor of 75 years of UN peacekeeping.

“It is something very special that you only experience once in your life as a Swiss woman,” the defense minister said in an interview with the Keystone-SDA news agency in Manhattan. About 300,000 people come to this square every day.

In addition to 50 personalities, members of the UN peacekeeping force, including Freiburg General Patrick Gauchat, who heads the Organization for the Surveillance of the Middle East Armistice in the Middle East (UNTSO), were also portrayed.

“Switzerland has been involved in peacebuilding for a long time,” Amherd said. “This is a sign of support as conflicts have changed, as have the conditions for peacebuilding. That is why we have to adapt our engagement to the situation.”

Since 1948, more than two million people from more than 120 countries have taken part in UN peacekeeping operations, of which nearly 4,300, including three Swiss, died while fulfilling their mandates.

Amherd in July in Korea

Defense Secretary Amherd is planning a July visit to the Korean peninsula, on the demarcation line between North and South Korea, Keystone-SDA revealed. The occasion is the 70th anniversary of the peacekeeping mission in the demilitarized zone.

Since 1953, a Swiss and a Swedish detachment have overseen the armistice agreement that ended the war between North and South Korea. Because there is no peace treaty, the two countries are still at war on paper. (sda)