Your Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am very happy to be in Vienna again to meet my fellow colleagues and this time in my capacity as the CICA Executive Director.
It gives me a great pleasure to host the Luncheon aimed at briefing OSCE Ambassadors from CICA region on the recent developments, inсluding CICA Ministerial Meeting in Nur-Sultan.
Time before the 28th OSCE Ministerial Council seems to be ideal to meet and exchange ideas and discuss prospects for a future engagement for a common goal of ensuring lasting peace and security across CICA-OSCE region or in other words, Greater Euro-Asian space.
I would like to make a presentation about «What is CICA today», its goals and future plans and share my vision on CICA-OSCE interaction. And I am looking forward to having an engaging discussion with all of you just after the main course.
Bon appetite!
Your Excellencies,
CICA, which marks its 30th anniversary next year, has come a long way from a concept to an effective Forum for implementation of confidence building measures and cooperation towards a common and indivisible security area in Asia.
Predominantly created to building confidence and trust across the Asian continent today CICA has evolved into a mature multilateral structure aimed at ensuring peace, security and stability in the region.
Asia is rightly regarded as one of the main drivers of global development in the 21st century, as the importance and role of the continent will be growing. However, Asian region is still facing different nature of challenges.
And resolution of these threats and challenges depend on the willingness to expand regional and international cooperation through development of common approaches of the Member States.
Therefore, let me further talk about the success story behind the CICA and why it is so important and relevant today for Asia.
What is CICA today?
Today CICA brings together 27 countries from the Pacific to the Mediterranean, from the Urals to the Indian Ocean, which cover 90% of the territory of Asia and make up half of the world’s population. CICA region vary widely in their historical and cultural backgrounds, but crucially share a common goal of peace and cooperation. It is for this reason that our Forum makes decisions and operates exclusively on the basis of consensus, to build trust and ensure that through dialogue and multilateralism we uphold CICA Member States’ commitment to the UN Charter.
CICA observer status has been granted to nine states and a number of international organizations, including the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the League of Arab States; partnership agreements were concluded with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Economic Cooperation Organization, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, and the Assembly of the People of Kazakhstan.
The most important fundamental document of CICA, the Almaty Act, was adopted at the First CICA Meeting of the Heads of State and Government (Summit) in 2002, which also serves as its Charter.
One of CICA’s serious advantages is its comprehensive approach to security issues, which consists of five broad dimensions of interaction for ensuring security: military-political, new challenges and threats, economic, environmental, and human.
CICA has a unique document for the Asian history of multilateral diplomacy – CICA Catalogue of Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) with approved dimensions of interaction among the Member States.
Since its inception, CICA has held five Summits and six Ministerial Meetings, demonstrating active political support for the Conference’s process. CICA has been consecutively chaired by Kazakhstan (2002-2010), Turkey (2010-2014), China (2014-2018) and Tajikistan (2018-2020). The CICA institutes – the Youth Council and the Business Council – are working effectively. Recently two new advisory bodies were established during the Sixth CICA Ministerial meeting: Council of Eminent Persons and Think Thank Forum. The Business Forum and the Non-Governmental Forum hold their meetings on a regular basis.
First year of the Kazakhstan Chairmanship
10 years after its previous term, the Republic of Kazakhstan has been elected to the position of CICA Chairman in October 2020. As the founding Member State of CICA, Kazakhstan has set forth a set of forward-thinking priorities for its Chairmanship, including the transformation into the full-fledged international organization for regional security as a strategic goal.
I am very pleased to note that in the first year of the Kazakh Chairmanship, the family of observers was replenished with a new member - the application of Turkmenistan was unanimously approved by all 27 CICA Member States.
Member States were able to organize and share their expertise and best practices along the five dimensions of cooperation in the first year of Kazakh Chairmanship. All together in 2021 around 50 events of the CICA Plan on Implementation of CBMs on ecological issues were held, tourism recovery methods, smart agronomy, digital economy, food security, development of transport corridors, poverty alleviation, cybersecurity, financial technologies and others.
The Government of Kazakhstan has provided the Secretariat with the new spacious premise in the modern building of the EXPO site this year. OSCE Delegations had a chance to observe this complex in 2017 within EXPO and in 2019 the Ambassadorial retreat of OSCE, which I was humbled to organize at that time.
This new premise allows us to increase the Secretariat’s international staff capacity in order to ensure a fair and balanced representation of all CICA regions at the CICA headquarters. At the moment diplomats from the People’s Republic of China, India, Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation are present at the Secretariat.
Today, CICA has reached a level where the need to transform the dialogue platform into a full-fledged international organization is becoming increasingly tangible. And such transformation is primarily based on:
1) the growing relevance of the Conference in the Asian security architecture,
2) its expanding practical capacity,
3) and the need to strengthen its potential to adapt to the new realities shaped by the increasing role of Asia in the world politics.
Given its broad inclusive membership and comprehensive agenda, the uniqueness of CICA in the Asian security system is reasonable.
Further, I would like to elaborate on the outcomes of the Sixth Ministerial Meeting.
Outcomes of the Sixth CICA Ministerial Meeting
The Sixth Ministerial Meeting held in Nur-Sultan on 12 October 2021 was attended by 23 of the 27 States at the level of ministers or their deputies, which has once again demonstrated an increasing importance of CICA.
Following the Ministerial Meeting a number of important documents were adopted:
- Updated CICA Catalogue of Confidence Building Measures. The Catalogue adapted to modern realities includes such new priority areas of cooperation as epidemiological safety, public health and pharmaceuticals, security of and in the use of information and communication technologies. Moreover, due priority has been attached to connectivity within economic dimension and gender issues;
- Regulations on the CICA Council of Eminent Persons. The Council of Eminent Persons is an advisory body consisting of former heads of state, prominent public personas, accomplished and leading figures in their fields, who will provide Member States with valuable advisory recommendations thanks to their decades of experience and leadership;
-Regulation on the CICA Think Tank Forum. Think Tank Forum is intended to bring together analytical centers and think tanks from across Asia to establish exchange of expertise and sharing of insights, as well as facilitate joint multilateral research projects.
Dear Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
In conclusion allow me to share with our views on the Prospects for cooperation between CICA and OSCE.
Despite the fact that CICA and OSCE pursue individual regional and political agendas, they operate within the UN principles, and share common values aimed at ensuring peace, security and stability in the region through dialogue and trust among Member States. Even though 19 countries are Members or Observers both to CICA and to OSCE.
Regional organizations today have ample expertise on various specific issues. This requires synergy between the regional and international organizations in making best use of these experiences and potential. Certainly, there is a much untapped cooperation potential between the two organizations and it is important to foster closer co-operation and knowledge-sharing among regional organizations.
In 2020, 10 years has passed since the adoption of the OSCE Astana Declaration, which noted the importance of forming a single community of Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian security. CICA and OSCE together could form a security zone throughout the Eurasian subcontinent.
Thank you for your attention.
You are welcome for remarks and I am ready for any questions you may have.
