Reasons for CICA summit delay

Security Council of the RK has rendered to Kz-Today the text of its explanatory note on that the decision on postponement of the CICA Summit was taken due to exacerbation of situation in the region and in the world after terror attacks in USA on September 11, 2001 and commencement of anti-terrorist operations in Afghanistan.

As Kz-Today has informed earlier, CICA Summit scheduled for November 8-10, 2001 in Almaty is postponed. Tentatively it will be held in the first half of 2002.

As is known, the initiative of holding the said forum was put forward by President Nursultan Nazarbayev in 1992 from the rostrum of the UN General Assembly.

Kazakhstan has carried out a tremendous work on moving this initiative forward. 16 Asian states, among which there are such big powers as India, China, Russia, have joined CICA. The idea of holding this forum found support on the part of such international organizations as the UN and OSCE.

Within the last nine preparatory years the representatives of the CICA Member States evolved the draft of the final document of the Summit, which includes 50 items. This international act contains basic principles and mechanisms of confidence-building measures in Asia. It also contains common approaches to the problems of disarmament and lowering the risk of military conflicts in the continent, issues of prevention of traditional and new threats to security in Asia.

In early September 2001 this draft was finally agreed upon in Almaty at the meeting of deputies of foreign ministers of the CICA Member States.

Nevertheless, despite almost complete preparedness for holding the first historical Summit, it was decided to postpone the Summit to later dates.

Security Council of the RK notes that by the same reasons - exacerbation of the situation in the region and in the world after terror attacks of the USA on September 11, 2001 and commencement of anti-terrorist operations in Afghanistan - there were postponed many international meetings and forums which had been scheduled for the Fall of 2001. Thus was postponed holding of the session of the UN General Assembly.

"Today all world's attention is focused on anti-terrorist operations in Afghanistan. This theme exactly obscures all other events, even acute problems of international relations" - notes out the Security Council.

"The results of lastly held international meetings, particularly of the APEC Summit in Shanghai, show that the main concern of their participants was the issue of combating terrorism and situation in Afghanistan.

Moreover, the new coil of exacerbation of the situation is observed in the Middle East, in particular between the CICA members - Israel and Palestine. It was not excluded that these countries would have drawn attention of the Summit participants on the settlement of the Middle East conflict.

In this regard we may presuppose that Almaty Summit of CICA would not have become an "exclusion from the rules" and the attention of its participants would naturally shift to the main problems of the current situation.

Along with that, a wider scope of issues was included in the Summit's agenda which envisaged evolvement of basic principles and mechanisms of confidence-building measures in Asia, enhancement of multilateral cooperation of Asian states in the field of security, laying foundation for the new structure of collective security in the continent, the necessity of which is vividly confirmed by present dramatic events developing in the core of Asia and around Afghanistan.

The subject matter of the Summit is much wider than of the problems of combating international terrorism or the situation in a separate region. However, in the present situation the said states exactly could "pull in" the participants, deviate their attention from the main goals and tasks of the Summit, and totally squeeze its contextual part. In that case the First CICA Summit would have fallen under a strict influence of current factors and its significance would have become inadequate to the expected results of its holding.

This is why it seems logical that organizers of the Almaty Summit took a decision to postpone it for later dates.

By that time, eventually, the lessons of present developments in the world and in the Asian continent will be scrupulously analyzed which will allow to take them into account when defining perspectives of development of the CICA process in future" - presumes Astana.