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CICA leaders will meet in Istanbul

01 June 2010 09:15 (UTC +04:00)

According to APA, Turkey will take over CICA Presidency from Kazakhstan in this summit for 2010-2012.

CICA Senior Officials Committee will gather under the chairmanship of Kazakh deputy foreign minister Nurlan Yermekbayev on June 5-6 in Istanbul before the summit. The senior officials will work on the political declaration to be adopted at the summit. The declaration will give a new impetus to the process of formation of the all-Asian cooperation space. Azerbaijan is represented in this committee by deputy foreign minister Vagif Sadigov. The CICA Senior Officials Committee will also discuss the action plan on prevention of illicit drug trafficking and other issues related to the CICA Secretariatâ€™s work.

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev is expected to attend the CICA summit. Azerbaijan and Turkey are looking forward to sign a gas transit agreement within the summit.

President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and other heads of states and governments will also participate at the summit.
Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) is an inter-governmental security forum in Asia which was initiated by Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev in 1992. In 1996, seventeen states participated in the conference and drafted the basic document. The first CICA summit was held in 2002. In 2006, the second CICA summit decided to accept South Korea as its 18th member state. CICA Member States include Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Palestine, Republic of Korea, Russia, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and Uzbekistan. Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Qatar, Vietnam, Ukraine and USA and the United Nations, OSCE and League of Arab States are observers. The first summit of the CICA was held in 2002. The idea was proposed by Kazakhstan at the end of the Cold War and at the time of shifting geopolitics, provided a timely opportunity for the Asian nations to address modern challenges to the international peace and stability and set out the vision to tackle them.