THE 3rd MEETING OF MINISTERS OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF CICA MEMBER STATES
August 25, 2008
Almaty
On August 25, 2008 in Almaty the 3rd meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, members of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA), was held. This meeting was an important step in the preparation of the 3rd CICA Summit, scheduled for 2010. One of the most important outcomes of the upcoming meeting was an admittance of three new members to the CICA - Jordan, the UAE and Qatar.
1. CICA: Basic Information
CICA is a big international forum, whose work is directed to the establishment of an effective system for ensuring peace, security and stability in Asia.
Today the regional structure includes 21 member states and 9 observers from states and international organizations.
The member states of CICA are Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Palestine, Korea, Russia, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey and Uzbekistan, the mentioned above Jordan, the UAE and Qatar are the newly joined.
The observers are the following countries: Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, USA and Ukraine. International organizations observers are namely the UN, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the Arab League.
The current chairman of the Conference is the Republic of Kazakhstan, which will serve as such until 2010.
The main administrative body of CICA is a permanent secretariat, which is located in Almaty.
2. The main stages of CICA formation
The process of creating CICA is inextricably linked with the international activities of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev, who addressed to the 47th session of the UN General Assembly with the idea of the need of calling CICA. That is the reason why the date “October, 5” is approved by Heads of the States and the Governments of CICA as an international day of the Conference in 2006. The core idea of Kazakhstan′s President was the desire to create an effective structure to ensure peace and security in the Asian continent. Unlike other regions of the world, Asia at that time did not have such a structure, and earlier attempts of such a creation were unsuccessful. This initiative was supported by a number of Asian States which were convinced that it’s high time to establish such a structure in Asia.
It is obvious that the main work of creating (establishing) CICA was on the Departments of Foreign Affairs of States, which expressed support for this initiative of Kazakhstan.
The 1st Conference of Ministers of Foreign Affairs (CMFA) of CICA, which was held in 1999, became a big event. The Conference was attended by heads of Departments of Foreign Affairs of 14 Asian States, which signed the Declaration of Principles regulating relationships between CICA member states that took part in the Conference. These principles are:
• Sovereign equality and respect for the rights inherent in sovereignty;
• Non-application of force or threat with force;
• Territorial integrity of member-states;
• Peaceful settlement of disputes;
• Non-interference in internal affairs;
• Disarmament and arms control;
• Economic, social and cultural cooperation;
• Respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.
The outcome of this CMFA was one of the main reasons for holding the 1st Summit of CICA in June 2002 in Almaty. Heads of States and Governments of Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, India, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkey and Uzbekistan, as well as senior representatives of Egypt, Iran, Israel and Palestine participated in the summit. The main result of the summit was signing the Almaty Act, which became a charter of CICA.
The 2nd CMFA of CICA and its outcome were one of the key stages in preparations for the 2nd CICA summit, which was opened on June 17, 2006 in Almaty. One of the important achievements of CICA was joining of the Republic of Korea to the forum prior to opening of the summit. It was an evidence the grown of CICA credibility on the Asian continent. It also is confirmed by the words of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev, who in his speech at the summit stressed: “This summit signifies an exceptionally important process of forming institutions of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia and the establishment of its permanent body - the Secretariat.
It is the first step towards the establishment of security structures in Asia.
Kazakhstan together with our CICA partners is actively working on solving organizational and financial aspects of the operation of the Secretariat, which will be represented by experts of CICA member states. As our first contribution we provided a building in Almaty for CICA Headquarters and necessary means for "launching" the Secretariat.”
As a result of the 2nd summit the Declaration was adopted and the CICA Secretariat was established by signing a multilateral agreement.
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A new phase of CICA development began after summit. Within its framework, meetings outside of Kazakhstan began being held. In this regard, we can mention meetings of a special working group and the Senior Officials Committee in the cities of Bangkok (12-14 March 2007) and Seoul (9-11 June 2008).
In December 2007 CICA obtained the observer status at the UN General Assembly, which led to its mission being recognized on a global scale.
On December 22-23rd 2007 the 1st Specialized Expert Meeting (SEM) on Confidence Building Measures in the field of drug trafficking prevention was held in Tehran, and in February 2008 in Ankara the 1st SEM on cooperation in new challenges and threats prevention was held.
During the years of 2008-2009 it is planned to conduct SEMs in the capitals of coordinator states, where projects of relevant documents will be studied. Their implementation will allow CICA to enter a new stage of development of confidence-building measures.
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