Nazarbayev mulls transforming CICA into organization

Nazarbayev keeps promoting the idea of transforming the CICA (Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia) into an organization, Tengrinews.kz reports. “Compared to Europe and its developed institutes of security, Asia does not have a continental system similar to the OSCE. In this sense the CICA gets a special significance and importance as an institutional tool for enhancement of security and cooperation in the region. The Declaration of the Principles of Almaty Act and the catalogue of the confidence building measures of the CICA constitute a political-legal basics of the Asian security system. A consolidated vision of CICA member-countries has been developed for the key security issues in the world and the region. All that certifies that the Conference has a high enough potential for transformation into an organization,” Kazakhstan President said at the anniversary session and the fourth meeting of the Foreign Ministers of CICA member-countries. “We hope to have some results in terms of establishment of our organization by the fourth summit of the CICA,” Nursultan Nazarbayev noted. According to Kazakhstan President, the status of the head of CICA secretariat could be raised from executive director to secretary general. He also suggested to consider creating a permanent CICA commission. “It is also necessary to continue developing the interaction between the CICA and OSCE that could help us transform into a common platform of Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian security, especially since we know the suggestions and requests coming from OSCE on cooperation with CICA. Today, when Asia experiences rapid development, we especially need a universal and effective institute of security and cooperation. In this context the CICA has to take a notable place in the new global security architecture,” Nazarbayev said. By Renat Tashkinbayev