CICA: A Road to Security in Asia
History and the present day of the process
The convening of the Conference on Interactions and Confidence building measures in Asia (CICA) occupies a special place in the system of foreign policy priorities of Kazakhstan.
The idea to convene the Conference was first introduced at the 47th session of the UN General Assembly in October, 1992 by President Nursultan Nazarbayev of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The president underlined that the aim of the initiative was to renew attempts, unsuccessful previously, to create an effective and universal structure ensuring security on Asian continent, where, unlike other regions of the world, such a mechanism has not yet been created.
Stages of the process
The first stage. Several meetings of the MFA experts of the Asian countries were held in the framework of the realization of the initiative. The first one was held in the April 1993 (12 participants); the second was in August-September 1993 (28 participants), and the third - in October 1994 (29 participants). The main achievement of the first stage was an agreement that discords existing in region cannot be an obstacle to finding common approaches to the problems concerning security and cooperation among the regional states.
The second stage. The member-states decided to establish a Special Working Group (SWG), aimed at the preparation of the Conference of the ministers of foreign affairs of the states, interested in convening the CICA. The first SWG meeting took place in March 1995. Participants of SWG were represented at the level of Ambassadors, Charge d'Affaires, Counselors of the Embassies, accredited in Almaty and experts from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs. The SWG meetings have been conducted regularly ever since.
During the sessions in 1995-99 the projects of the basic CICA documents such as "The Rule of Procedures", "Declaration on the Principles", "The CICA Structure and Institutes" were considered.
At the Conference of the Deputies Ministers of Foreign Affairs, conducted by the MFA of Kazakhstan in Almaty February 7-8, 1996, the representatives of 23 Asian countries agreed that the development of the CICA process needs a long term and common effort of all participants. The course of debate showed that the states of region were willing to work thoroughly in the framework of preparation of the projects of basic documents and definition of cooperation directions.
On December 3, 1997 the second meeting of the Deputy Foreign Ministers of the CICA member-states was held. Representatives from 27 countries and international organizations took part.
The international colloquium "Asian Security in the Context of Convening the CICA", held in Almaty October 21-22, 1998, was an important moment in the development of the CICA. The heads of leading scientific and research centers and institutions from 16 countries of Asia, Europe and the USA took part in the colloquium. The main goal of that event was to exchange opinions on all aspects of Asian security with an emphasis on pursuing the idea of creating a regional security system.
In January-February 1999 bilateral consultations were held in the capitals of key CICA member-states. During the consultations the agreements were reached on the rapprochement of positions of the participants concerning several disputed provisions of the Declaration on Principles.
The Meeting of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of CICA member-states, held in Almaty on September 14, 1999, and the signing of the Declaration on Principles Guiding Relations Between CICA Member-States became the biggest achievement for Kazakhstan's diplomacy since President Nazarbayev came up with the initiative to establish a multilateral mechanism of security and cooperation in Asia. Thus, for the first time legal basis for the Asian security system providing for a concrete activities, measures and mechanisms of ensuring stability in the region was created.
The foreign ministers of the 15 CICA member-states, representatives of the observer-countries such as the USA, Japan, Indonesia, South Korea, Malaysia, Mongolia, Ukraine, and of the international organizations (UN, OSCE) participated in the ministerial meeting.
The participants adopted the Resolution of the ministerial meeting, where they confirmed their support for the development of the CICA process as the regional forum. They also decided to work out a document within the CICA framework to be signed by the Heads of States and the Governments.
The third stage. The regular session of the Special Working Group within the CICA framework took place 12-14 of April, 2000. The participants noted that after signing the Declaration of principles by the foreign ministers the process reached a new stage, where the concrete measures should be taken to implement the provisions of Declaration.
On this session the participants adopted the structure of the document to be signed by the Head of States and Governments and agreed that the main provisions of the document will be in line with the methods of implementation of the principles of the Declaration, as well as the elaboration of a common approach to the new threats and challenges to the security in Asia such as terrorism, extremism, drug trafficking, international crime and ecological problems.
The international seminar on "The ways and methods of implementation of Declaration of principles, guiding regulation relation between the CICA member-states held in the period between 15-17 of June, 2000. The main objective of the seminar is to elaborate and exchange opinions with the content of the document to be signed by Heads of States and Governments with the content document
In the period between 26 - 31 of March, 2001 the regular session of SWG was held in Almaty to continue work on elaboration of the summit document. During the session experts agreed on majority of the provisions of the document and decided to continue elaboration of the document.
The following working groups on preparation of the summit has been created: 1) the working group dealing with organizational issues of summit ;2) the working group dealing with security issues of the summit; 3) the working group dealing with issues of providing informational support the summit.
Executive Secretariat of the CICA summit was created in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan.
On June 4-9, 2001 the last SWG meeting was held in order to finalize the draft of the CICA Summit Document. The attendants were informed of the positive reaction of the heads of CICA member-states to the proposal to hold the Summit during the proposed period of November 8-10, 2001.
Membership in the CICA.
At this time member-states of the CICA are: Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, China, Mongolia, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Palestine, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Uzbekistan; observer-states are: Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Lebanon, Malaysia, Ukraine, the USA, Vietnam, Thailand. At the last SWG meeting (4-9 June) the Ambassador of Mongolia in Almaty signed the Declaration on Principles, allowing this state to restore the status of member-state of CICA. The international organizations, such as the UN, the OSCE, the League of Arab States, and others also take part in the CICA.
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