#Kazakhstan - International forum and dialogue platform

An international forum and dialogue platform founded by the first president of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev was one of the significant political events of 2019, writes Colin Stevens.

The Summit of Heads of State of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) was held in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan.

The CICA is an organization which includes states in which half of the world's population live.

It is an international forum designed to strengthen cooperation and to ensure peace, security and stability in Asia.

The idea was first mooted by Nursultan Nazarbayev as far back as October 1992.

Nazarbayev, then leader of one of the newly formed states of the post-communist central Asia region, spoke at the United Nations General Assembly and proposed the creation of an Asian equivalent of the OSCE.

Unlike other regions in the world, Asia did not have such a structure at that time and earlier attempts to create a suitable structure had not been successful.

The  result of Nazarbayev’s intervention was the CICA which  formally started its activities in March, 1993.

From the very beginning the idea of convocation of the CICA has found support of a number of the Asian states defining the political climate on the continent, and the international organizations (the United Nations, the OSCE, and the LAS).

Today, it is seen as a very serious organization, including 27 member states that cover about 90 percent of the territory and population of Asia. Another 8 states and 5 international organizations, including the UN, have observer status.

Nazarbayev,who recently stepped down as his countrry’s president, believed that such a forum could be extremely important not only in terms of discussing pressing political problems, but also in terms of the necessary guarantees to ensure sustainable economic growth of countries in the region.

CICA, whose secretariat is located in Kazakhstan, seeks to strengthen contacts and ties with the UN, regional and international organizations to support its efforts to strengthen peace, security and economic development in Asia.

At the last CICA summit, held in 2014 in Shanghai, Nursultan Nazarbayev also took the initiative to create the Organization for Security and Development of Asia (OSDA).

Nazarbayev, the only leader Kazakhstan had known since the country gained independence nearly 30 years agoazakhstan emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 as an independent state and is the world’s 9th biggest country.

Kazakhstan is currently undergoing major economic, social and political reforms to position itself among the top 30 global economies by 2050.The land-locked country, situated between Russia, China, the Turkic world and Europe, has a unique strategic importance as a bridge between East and West. Its geographical location on the ancient Silk Road makes it a natural hub for energy, trade and finance.

Liao Xiaoyi, an observer on Central Asia affairs who is based in Beijing, says, “It is necessary to recognize that the CICA, to a large extent is the creation of Nazarbayev. The idea of creating the CICA arose thanks to his great political foresight, his sense of duty in ensuring regional security and stability in the world as a whole.”

The 5th CICA summit was attended by top officials from 20 countries.

Xiaoyi says that, taking into account the previous developments and the high level of participation of the CICA member states, it can be expected the event will inject  new impetus to the further promotion of confidence building measures and will be an effective platform for discussing the most pressing issues of concern to all members of the CICA.

Former Latvian Socialist MEP Andrejs Mamikins believes Kazakhstan had a vital role to play in international affairs, both economically to culturally.

He said, “Over the last five years, the country has become much more visible on the global stage and increased its participation in international affairs. This is partly due to the tenure on the Security Council but also due to its modernisation strategy under President Nazarbayev and the role it is playing regionally.This is visionary politics with a focus on continuing this impressive development.”

There are 26 member states in the CICA, including Russia, China, Turkey and Egypt and each CICA summit, held every 4 years, adopts a communique, or policy document. The third CICA summit , for example, adopted a declaration entitled "Constructing cooperative approach to interaction and security in Asia".

A different member takes turn at chairing the organisation with Tajikistan, host of this year’s summit, next to assume the chairmanship.

The summit brought together high-level delegations who are expected to  again adopt an ambitious declaration covering all issues of cooperation within the CICA.

Leaders of Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Cambodia, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Palestine, Russia, Thailand, Turkey, and Uzbekistan will take part. Preparations for the keenly-awaited event are under control of Dushanbe Mayor Rustam Emomali.

Special attention during the summit was paid to the initiatives of Nursultan Nazarbayev in the field of international and regional security. According to the organisers, the summit may also herald the launch of an international Conference on Euro-Atlantic security and Eurasia.

The spokesman added that the 2 day Dushanbe summit, the 5th to be held, served as an effective platform for discussing and resolving the remaining and new problems encountered in Asia, as well as for promoting initiatives and finding effective mechanisms at a very high level.

He added, “Given the high-level participation of member countries, as well as friendly and trusting relations between them, Tajikistan expects good results.

“We are confident the summit will also give a political impetus to the achievement of new goals and explore ways to address the existing and emerging issues of collective concern to the member states, further advance the CICA process and continue implementing confidence building measures and transform Asia into a harmonious region with enduring peace and prosperity.”

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