U.S. questions whether contract violates sanctions

BERN, Switzerland: The World Jewish Congress criticized Switzerland on Monday for participating in a gas deal with Iran that it condemned as a propaganda triumph for Tehran's hard-liners.

Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey traveled to Iran in mid-March to sign a deal between the Swiss energy trading company EGL and state-owned National Iranian Gas Export Company that is worth €18 billion to €27 billion (US$28 billion-$42 billion).


Photos of the March 17 signing ceremony with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sparked a furor in Switzerland, where the nationalist People's Party has campaigned behind an image of a smiling Calmy-Rey in a white head scarf seated below a picture of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

"It became clear immediately that the visit by the Swiss foreign minister was a propagandistic triumph for the mullahs," WJC President Ronald Lauder, the billionaire cosmetics magnate, wrote in a statement.

Lauder criticized People's Party leader Christoph Blocher for tainting the Swiss image with his isolationist policies — and damned Calmy-Rey, a Social Democrat, for having "sold out her government's international credibility in return for 5.5 billion cubic meters (194 billion cubic feet) of Iranian natural gas."