Presidents of twelve countries, including Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, China, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Sri Lanka, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan will arrive in Dushanbe for participation in the fifth summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) that will take place in the Tajik capital on June 14-15, a source in the Tajik government told Asia-Plus in an interview.
According to him, fifteen other member nations of the CICA will be represented at the CICA summit by prime ministers, deputy prime ministers and foreign ministers.
Afghanistan will be represented at the upcoming CICA summit by its Chief Executive, D. Abdullah Abdullah, the source added.
Tajik capital has never seen so many foreign high-ranking state officials simultaneously.
A number of bilateral meetings are expected to take place on the sidelines of the CICA summit.
Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) is a multi-national forum for enhancing cooperation towards promoting peace, security and stability in Asia. It was initiated by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev in 1992. In 1996, seventeen states participated in the conference and drafted the basic document. The first meeting of the CICA Ministers of Foreign Affairs was held on 14 September 1999 with participation of 15 Member States. The Declaration on Principles Guiding Relations between CICA Member States was adopted at that meeting. The first CICA summit was held in 2002.
CICA member states now include Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bhutan, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, China, Egypt, Iceland, India, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kiribati, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Liechtenstein, Marshall Islands, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nauru, Norway, North Korea, Pakistan, Palau, Palestine, Philippines, Qatar, South Korea, Russia, Syria, Tajikistan, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.
At a meeting of CICA foreign ministers that took place in September 2018 on the sidelines of the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly, the chairmanship of the forum for 2018-2020 moved from China to Tajikistan.
