Your Excellencies, Dear colleagues,
Ladies and gentlemen,
It is a great honour for me to represent at such a high-profile event the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA), which brings together 27 states of the Asian continent.
I would like to thank the host country Kyrgyzstan for excellent organization of the session at the picturesque and legendary Lake of Issyk-Kul.
In the year of the 30th CICA anniversary - participation in such events provides a unique opportunity to confirm the general vector of the current partnership and identify new prospects for cooperation.
Back in 2019, UN Secretary-General António Guterres, emphasized that “parliaments play vital roles as defenders of democracy, agents of accountability and crucial links between the local and the global, bringing the concerns of people into the international arena.”[1]
I would like to note that today parliamentary diplomacy is perceived as a major factor of international security. As practice shows, parliamentary dialogue and inter-parliamentary cooperation can make a difference in ensuring peace, stability and security at the regional and global levels.
Dear delegates,
Today Asia ranks first among the regions of the world with the highest rates of economic growth, while still possessing huge untapped economic, human and natural potential. We have a good background for enhancing practical interaction between CICA and TurkPA.
The main objective of CICA is building consensus-based multilateral approaches to peace and cooperation. CICA's broad geography and comprehensive agenda provides its Member States, which are parties to smaller regional fora, the possibility to benefit from outreach to a wider region and from broader agenda. CICA is perfectly fits to promote connectivity across the Asian continent, including strengthening human, cultural and other links between Asian nations. Overall, CICA provides a unique multilateral platform for pan-Asian dialogue and can serve as a very useful tool to TurkPA.
Moreover, TurkPA has officially acquired the observer status in CICA in 2012 and has been an active participant of joint projects under the CICA human dimension – one of the five CICA dimensions.
The human dimension is aimed at the implementation of joint projects in the field of culture, development of dialogue among civilizations, promoting people-to-people contacts including exchanges among scientific, educational and sports institutions, etc. This dimension enjoys coordination by Uzbekistan and is supported by co-coordinators of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. This year, Kazakhstan, as the Chairman of the Youth Council, plans to hold the Fifth Meeting of the Youth Council on July 14-15, which will bring together representatives of youth associations and national agencies in this area under a broad agenda that includes youth and student exchange programmes, countering youth radicalization, discussing preventive measures against harmful behaviours among youth, as well as the role of young parliamentarians in development of national youth policies.
In this regard, I would like to note that we welcome the readiness of TurkPA to participate in the Fifth Meeting of the CICA Youth Council and address the Council with a presentation on the contribution of the Parliamentary Group of Young Parliamentarians to the development of youth policy in the Turkic speaking states.
I would like to congratulate TurkPA on renaming to the Parliamentary Assembly of Turkic States and wish the Assembly to achieve great further success under its new title.
I am confident that TurkPA Member States who are also Members of the CICA will support the CICA transformation in the same spirit and same vein at the upcoming Sixth CICA Summit to be held this October in Nur-Sultan/Kazakhstan.
In conclusion, let me wish you valuable ideas and discussions, and, in general, success to the Plenary Session!
