Informal meeting of CICA foreign ministers may take place at UN General Assembly in 2017 - Chinese foreign ministry

BEIJING, April 28. /TASS/. An informal meeting of the foreign ministers of member states of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) may take place in the framework of UN General Assembly in 2017, Director General of Chinese Foreign Ministry’s Department of European and Central Asian Affairs Gui Congyou said on Thursday. "We also plan to hold an informal meeting of foreign ministers of CICA member states in the framework of UN General Assembly next year. In the first half of 2017, China, as a chair, plans to hold CICA’s second non-governmental forum," the diplomat told a press conference on the 5th meeting of foreign ministers of CICA member states. "We are currently discussing with colleagues the possibility of holding a CICA summit in 2018," he added. CICA is an inter-governmental forum for resolving key regional problems and developing cooperation between member states. The idea of convening the CICA was first proposed by Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev in October 1992 at the 47th session of UN General Assembly. Among CICA member states are Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, South Korea, Mongolia, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Russia, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. Among observers are Belarus, Indonesia, Malaysia, Ukraine, US, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Japan, as well as the United Nations Organization, Arab League, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and Parliamentary Assembly of Turkic Speaking countries. Read more