Libya has decided to impose a "total" economic embargo on Switzerland, government spokesman Moham-med Baayou said yesterday, after Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi declared holy war on Bern.
"Libya has decided to impose a total embargo on all economic and commercial exchanges with Switzer-land," Mr Baayou said.
The country will "adopt alternative (sources) for medicines and medical and industrial equipment" imported from Switzerland, he added.
The announcement comes just hours after Libya protested against a US State Department official poking fun at Colonel Gaddafi after he called for jihad against Switzerland in an ongoing diplomatic spat with that country.
Last Thursday, Col Gaddafi made the call over a recent Swiss ban on the construction of minarets.
"It is against unbelieving and apostate Switzerland that jihad (holy war) ought to be proclaimed by all means," Col Gaddafi said.
"Any Muslim around the world who has dealings with Switzerland is an infidel (and is) against Islam, against Mohammed, against God, against the Koran," he told a crowd of thousands in a speech broadcast live on television.
"Boycott Switzerland: boycott its goods, boycott its airplanes, its ships, its embassies; boycott this unbelieving, apostate race, aggressor against the houses of Allah," he added.
Yesterday, the Libyan foreign ministry called in the US charge d'affaires demanding "explanations and apologies" over the reaction by State Department spokesman Philip Crowley, the official Jana news agency said.
It added that there would be "negative repercussions on economic and political relations between the two countries if no measures are adopted."
The day after Col Gaddafi's call, Mr Crowley said: "I saw that (jihad) report and it just brought me back to the day of September, one of the more memorable sessions of the UN General Assembly that I can recall.
"Lots of words and lots of papers flying all over the place and not necessarily a lot of sense," Mr Crowley said.
Col Gaddafi berated Western powers in a lengthy UN diatribe, accusing the global body of failing to prevent millions of deaths as he demanded trillions of dollars in colonial reparations.
His jihad call marked a new low in Libyan-Swiss relations, which soured in 2008 when Col Gaddafi's son Hannibal and his wife were arrested and briefly held in Geneva after two domestic workers complained they had mistreated them.
The row worsened when Libya swiftly stopped two Swiss businessmen, Rashid Hamdani and Max Goeldi, from leaving its territory.
Mr Hamdani has since been allowed to leave Libya, but Mr Goeldi is still being held.