Switzerland becomes the "protecting power" of the United States in Iran after the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Since May 1980, the Swiss embassy in Tehran has been consistently relaying diplomatic communications between Iran and the United States.
Iran–Iraq war
Beginning in 1984, victims of the Iran–Iraq War received medical treatment in Switzerland, while Swiss companies were doing multibillion-dollar business with Iraq at the same time. Cooperation on the national level to prevent natural catastrophes was initiated in 2006.
In 1992, Hans Buehler an employee of Swiss firm Crypto AG was detained in Iran on charges of espionage. He was later released by the Iranian authorities after the firm paid a 1 million dollar bond. Soon after Buehler's release Crypto AG dismissed him and charged him the $1m. Swiss media and the German magazine Der Spiegel took up his case in 1994, pursuing the question of whether Crypto's machines had in fact been rigged by Western intelligence.
is a Swiss engineer, connected with the Khan network trafficking in the proliferation of nuclear materials and know-how to Pakistan, Iran, Libya, and North Korea. He has been connected in particular with gas centrifuges used for isotopic enrichment of uranium. In May 2008, the President of the Swiss Confederation, Pascal Couchepin announced that the Tinner files, believed to number around 30,000 documents, had been shredded. It is alleged that this was a cover-up, to hide the involvement of Urs Tinner with the CIA.
Security incidences at the Iranian embassy in Bern
In November 2011, Swiss police investigated two minor attacks on the Iranian Embassy in Bern.
Tax evasion
In 2014, international medias reported Iranian nationals to be listed among the tax evaders in Switzerland.
Trade
Trade agreements
There are agreements between the two countries on air traffic, road and rail transport, export risk guarantees, protection of investments and double taxation. Iran is one of Switzerland's most important trading partners in the Middle East. Swiss-Iranian economic treaties already exist for investment protection, double taxation and aviation. A trade agreement was signed in 2005 but has not yet been ratified. In 2010, the volume of trade with Iran was about 741 million Swiss francs; Switzerland exported goods for about 700 million francs, and it has imported goods to 41 million Swiss francs. The main goods exported by Switzerland are pharmaceutical products, machinery and agricultural products. Switzerland exports to Iran totaled nearly US$1.9 billion in the ten-month period ending on January 31, 2014.
2007 gas contract
In the year 2007, Iran and Switzerland signed a major 25-year gas contract to export over 5 billion cubic meters of gas per year from the Persian Gulf reportedly valued at 18 billion euros. Starting with 1.5 billion cubic meters per year in 2010, to be increased to 4 bcm by 2012. This contract has been signed between the Switzerland's company of Elektrizitätsgesellschaft Laufenburg and the National Iranian Gas Export Company which will be started practically at the beginning of 2009. There is some skepticism that Iran will not be able to supply gas to Switzerland for the foreseeable future because no pipeline connects Iran to Europe at present. In February 2010, Iran announced it is ready for gas export to Switzerland. The deal was aimed at reducing Bern's dependency on Russian gas. In October 2010, EGL announced the unilateral suspension of the gas contract with Iran.
International sanctions
Switzerland and Iran have greatly reduced their bilateral economic cooperation since the UN Security Council took up Iran's nuclear enrichment program in 2005. The Swiss government has been cooperating with the U.S. to freeze banking accounts and other financial assets belonging to individuals involved in the Iranian nuclear program; Switzerland has also committed to block the sale of dual-use items. Vitol and Glencore, 2 Swiss-based firms, were also major re-sellers of gasoline to Iran until recently but have since stopped trading with the country. In January and December 2011, Switzerland expanded its unilateral sanctions against Iran. The Swiss Federal Council said in a statement on January 2014 that it had suspended part of its economic sanctions against Iran in accordance with the Geneva nuclear accords between Tehran and the six world powers but the trade barriers are still officially in place. Based on a statement by Swiss President Didier Burkhalter at the 9th World Economic Forum, it will be a step by step process and the official removal of all trade sanctions will depend on the final agreement about Iran's nuclear program. It has been reported in the media that the Swiss government has circumvented the sanctions in several cases. The adoption of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action took place in the Swiss city of Geneva and the general framework of the current agreement was concluded on April 2, 2015 in Lausanne. In 2016, following the implementation of the JCPOA with P5+1, Switzerland lifted all unilateral sanctions against Iran pertaining to its nuclear program and Johann Schneider-Ammann became the first ever Swiss president to visit Iran.
Humanitarian channel
After the U.S. unilaterally canceled the JointComprehensive Plan of Action, which became international law in 2015, economic sanctions were re-imposed in 2018, and further tightened in late 2019 by designating the Central Bank of Iran under U.S. counterterrorism authorities, as well as imposing restrictions on cargo shipping from and to Iran. Swiss food and pharmaceutical companies have continued to do business with Iran, but due to the strict financial sanctions, even exempt goods could no longer be paid for by Iranian banks. In December 2019, the U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland and the Swiss state secretary for foreign affairs in Bern announced that constructive talks have been taking place between Iran, Switzerland and the U.S. to establish a trade liaison with the Islamic republic by early 2020 without involving its sanctioned central bank, so that much needed health goods and food products could be provided to the Iranian people.
