Bahrain participates in CICA’s ministerial meeting

Manama, Apr. 28 (BNA): The Minister’s Assistant for Foreign Affairs, Abdullah bin Faisal Al Dossari, participated in the fifth Ministerial Meeting of the Foreign Ministers of member States of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA), hosted by the People’s Republic of China on April 27-28. On the occasion, Al Dossari gave a statement in which he touched on the challenges and fast-paced changes which require consultations and exchange of views in order for CICA countries to be able to confront together whatever threatens their security, stability and future and affect their peoples and prevent them from attaining their common interests and goals towards unity, justice and peace. He said that the Asian continent is able to defend the common interests of its countries and confront the challenges and crises they face, stressing that cooperation between CICA countries should give priority to confronting extremism and terrorism which have significantly spread to become a real threat to states’ stability and national security and have become dangerous enough to require a serious stand to be combated collectively. Siting the common challenges that necessitate cooperation, he mentioned lethal diseases, climate change and global warming, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, financial and economic crises and the increasing drug trade, asserting that their common confrontation needs a comprehensive and innovative strategy capable of protecting the continent’s countries from woes. He also emphasized the importance for the region’s countries to acquire the ability to use information technology to avail of it in development efforts and in increasing regional trade and joint investments between them. The Assistant Minister expressed hope that such important CICA Ministerial Meeting would be the beginning of a bold step and a major turning point in promoting joint action and laying down the foundations for justice and peace as well as achieving the well-being and prosperity of the CICA countries. He noted that since CICA inception 20 years ago, a tangible progress has been made in many issues, most notably the exchange of views on political matters, the trust-building among the member states and the consolidation of the main bodies which all have contributed to Asian peace, security and stability. On the sidelines of the event, the Minister’s Assistant for Foreign Affairs held a number of interviews and meetings with some of the participating heads of delegations and reviewed with them a number of issues, bilateral relations and ways of supporting CICA for the good benefit of the participating countries and their peoples. Earlier, President of the People’s Republic of China, Xi Jinping, had delivered the opening speech and the Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs and CICA’s current Session President, Wang Yi, chaired the meeting sessions. It is noteworthy that in addition to the Kingdom of Bahrain, CICA includes on its membership 25 other countries which work together for the common goals of activating dialogue and to take measures capable of strengthening security and political cooperation and coordination among the organization’s member-state. Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA).