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CICA Third Summit begins in Istanbul

08 June 2010 13:02 (UTC +04:00)

Presidents of Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Macedonia, Mongolia and Ukraine; vice presidents of Iraq and Vietnam; prime minister of Russia; crown prince of Kuwait; deputy prime minister of Cambodia; member of State Council of China are attending the summit as well as foreign ministers, and representatives of eight other countries. Representatives of United Nations, Organization of the Islamic Conference, NATO, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe are also participating in the meeting. Turkish President Abdullah Gul and President of Kazakhstan, CICA Chairman Nursultan Nazarbayev welcomed the guests at the Chiragan Palace of Istanbul.
Vietnam and Iraq are expected to join the organization as full members and Bangladesh as observer at the summit. Turkey will take over the rotating chairmanship of CICA from Kazakhstan at the end of the summit. It will lead the organization in 2010-2012. The summit participants will release a final declaration on the regional and global processes.
CICA is an inter-governmental security forum in Asia which was initiated by Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev in 1992. The first CICA summit was held in 2002. 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.