The Swiss Foreign Ministry (FDFA) says an employee at its embassy in Iran has died in an accident, which Iranian news agencies said was a fall from a high-rise building just outside of Tehran.
"The FDFA and its head Federal Councillor Ignazio Cassis are shocked by the tragic death and express their deepest condolences to the family," the ministry said in a statement on May 4.
Cassis said Swiss authorities were in contact with the woman's family. The ministry did not identify the victim, nor did it give details on the incident.
Iranian police said they had opened an investigation into the death.
Iran's Mehr news agency quoted emergency services spokesman Mojtaba Khaledi as saying that the victim was the first secretary at the Swiss Embassy, and was found dead after falling from a high-rise building where she lived in Kamranieh, an affluent suburb on the northern edge of the capital, Tehran.
Khaledi said the diplomat's body was found by a gardener after an employee who arrived at her apartment early on May 4 noticed she was missing.
"The cause of her fall has yet to be determined," Khaledi told Fars.
The diplomat was 51, the semiofficial news agency ISNA reported. Other reports put her age at 52.
The German news agency dpa quoted anonymous sources as saying the woman was a diplomat in the department that represents U.S. diplomatic interests in Iran.
Switzerland has represented the United States diplomatically in Iran since Washington and Tehran cut ties in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.