The VII Summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) will be held in Baku on October 15. Heads of state and government, foreign ministers, and other high-level representatives from various regions of Asia are expected to participate in the summit hosted by Azerbaijan.
Modern.az reports that ahead of the summit, several countries have announced who will lead their delegations.
Leaders arriving in Baku and whose visits have been confirmed
Currently, Lao President Thongloun Sisoulith, Israeli President Isaac Herzog, and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet are in Baku. High-level contacts between Azerbaijan and Laos have begun ahead of the CICA summit. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet is also already in Azerbaijan. It has been officially announced that Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov will be on a working visit to Azerbaijan on October 14-15 and will participate in the CICA summit. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's participation in the meeting on October 15 has also been confirmed. According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, issues of CICA's future development and multilateral cooperation in the Eurasian space will be discussed at the summit. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi will also attend the event.
Who will attend from China, Pakistan, and other countries?
Information has been circulated that several other countries will also be represented at a high level ahead of the summit. The participation of Khalifa bin Shaheen Al-Marar, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, in the CICA summit has been confirmed by the country's embassy in Baku.
Palestine will be represented at the summit by Foreign Affairs and Diaspora Minister Varsen Aghabekyan Shahin. This was announced on October 13. In addition, according to earlier information from Belarusian Ambassador to Azerbaijan Dmitry Pinevich, the country's delegation will be led by Igor Sergeyenko, Chairman of the House of Representatives of the Parliament. High-level representation from China and Pakistan is also expected at the summit.
Will all Central Asian leaders be in Baku?
CICA Secretary General Kairat Sarybay told the media on October 1 that they expect the participation of numerous heads of state and government at the summit. He expressed hope that the leaders of Central Asian countries would attend the summit and said there was positive information about the participation of high-level representatives from other regions of Asia. In the final statement of the 8th Consultative Meeting of Azerbaijani and Central Asian Heads of State held in Turkmenistan on October 8, preparations for the CICA summit in Baku were also highly appreciated. The participation of the leaders of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan has not been officially announced.
What issues will be discussed in Baku?
According to official CICA information, the summit will bring together heads of state and government, representatives of member and observer states, as well as observer and partner organizations. The main objectives of the meeting are to strengthen dialogue, mutual trust, peace, security, and stability in Asia, as well as to develop multilateral cooperation in solving common problems. According to Kairat Sarybay's previous statement, a political declaration, a thematic document, and a number of institutional decisions are expected to be adopted within the framework of the summit.
Which leaders participated in previous summits?
Previous CICA summits have also been marked by high-level international representation. The V Summit held in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, on June 15, 2019, was attended by numerous heads of state and government, including Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, and Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev. Azerbaijan was represented by Novruz Mammadov, who was acting prime minister at the time.
The VI Summit held in Astana on October 12-13, 2022, was attended by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, and other high-level representatives.
The VII Summit to be held in Baku will be the first CICA summit organized at the level of heads of state and government in Azerbaijan.
It should be noted that CICA was established in 1992 at the initiative of Nursultan Nazarbayev, the first president of Kazakhstan. Currently, the organization has 28 member states: Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, South Korea, Russia, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam. Belarus, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and the USA are observer states of the organization. Among CICA's observer organizations are the UN, the International Organization for Migration, the OSCE, the League of Arab States, and the Parliamentary Assembly of Turkic-speaking States.
