Can Kazakhstan Bring New Life to CICA?
The Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) held a major summit on 12-13 October in Astana (no longer Nur-Sultan), Kazakhstan. "I want to emphasize that we are not creating a new organization but are moving to a new stage of institutional development," declared Kazakhstani President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev during the event. He was referring to ambitious plans for CICA's future, advanced by bureaucratic reforms recently launched in the Kazakhstani capital; however, it remains to be seen if the next three decades of CICA's existence are more eventful than the previous three. The summit One way to understand CICA, which celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2022, is by looking at its member states: Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Republic of Korea, Russia, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkiye, the United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, and Kuwait. A cursory glance at this list shows the great potential that CICA has for development, integration, and win-win initiatives. After all, a unified economic or political bloc stretching from the Barents and the Red Sea to the South China Sea would be a global force to be reckoned with. For CICA's VI Summit, 11 heads of state in addition to high-level delegations traveled to Astana, which hosts the organization's headquarters.
With an eclectic list of member states, it is logical that Astana became the CICA's HQ, given Kazakhstan's historical foreign policy based on multi-vectorism. Among the VIP attendees were Uzbekistan's President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Vietnam's Vice President Vo Tha>> Anh Xuan, Deputy Secretary General Talgat Aduov from the Parliamentary Assembly of Turkic States, China's Vice President Wang Qishan, Bangladesh's Foreign Affairs Minister Abul Kalam Abdul Momen, the Organization of Turkic States' Secretary General Baghdad Amreyev, a delegation from the UAE, among others. One particularly notable presence was that of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. During the event, presidents Tokayev and Erdogan played a game of table tennis, taking Nixon's famous ping-pong diplomacy to a new, more literal level. (It is unclear who won). The two countries have historically strong bilateral relations, including membership to the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, commonly known as Middle Corridor. High-level meetings...
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