Switzerland and Germany on Wednesday signed an air security accord to prevent possible Sept. 11-style attacks by terrorists using civilian aircraft, Swiss Radio International (SRI) reported.

 

According to the Swiss government, the accord will guarantee better flight security cooperation between the two neighboring countries.

 

Besides improving the exchange of flight information, under the accord Swiss and German air forces will be able to intervene in each other's airspace if a plane presents a threat.

 

In accordance with the accord, still to be approved by parliament, each air force will be able to carry out a visual identification, and escort or closely monitor a suspect aircraft.

 

However, the accord, which comes ahead of the 2008 European football championships, does not authorize military pilots to fire at hostile aircraft, limiting their role mainly to monitoring suspect aircraft.

 

According to SRI, current German legislation does not allow German or foreign air force pilots to use their weapons against civilian aeroplanes that refuse to cooperate in airspace over Germany.

 

This means that the range of dissuasive measures under the new accord is less extensive than those contained in similar French and Italian agreements.

 

The Swiss government believes that the organization of Euro 2008, with matches due to take place in Basel, Bern, Zurich and Geneva, makes this kind of cooperation with neighboring countries all the more important.

 

However, as the protection of airspace against terrorist attacks is a permanent activity, flight cooperation with Germany should not be restricted solely to the time of the tournament, it noted.

 

Switzerland was able to put its air security cooperation with its neighbor France to the test during the G8 summit in Evian in 2003.

 

Although the security collaboration with France was initially limited to the duration of the summit, it was later extended into an open-ended accord.

 

(Xinhua News Agency January 11, 2007)