What is CICA Summit?

The CICA stands for the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia. It is a forum of 27 Asian countries for enhancing cooperation towards promoting peace, security and stability in Asia through dialogues and consultations The CICA is based on the recognition that there is a close link between peace, security and stability in Asia and the world. The security and confidence building measures will lead to peace and stability in the region.

The idea of convening the CICA was first proposed in 1992 by the President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev during his address at the 47th Session of the UN General Assembly. After this idea was proposed, the Asian leaders launched many consultative meetings to give concrete shape to CICA. Finally, the first meeting of CICA Ministers of Foreign Affairs was held in Almaty, Kazakhstan on September 14, 1999. Total IS countries including China and India participated in this meeting.
Thus, India is the founder member of CICA.

Principles of CICA
The First Ministerial Meeting laid the foundation of CICA with the signing of the Declaration on the Principles Guiding Relations between the CICA Member States. The guiding principles of CICA are: commitment to the United Nations Charter, respecting each other’s sovereign equality; refraining from the threat or use of force; respecting the territorial integrity of each other; settling disputes in accordance with the Declaration, UN Charter and international law; refraining from any intervention in the internal affairs of each other; commitment to the goal of achieving general and complete disarmament; enhancing the process of economic, social and cultural cooperation; and respecting human rights and fundamental freedoms of all individuals.
Meetings: In order to achieve its objectives the CICA holds two sets of meetings: Summits of Heads of member states, held every four years; and the meetings of Foreign Ministers, held every year.

The First Summit of CICA was held in 2002 at Almati, Kazakhstan; Second Summit in 2006 was also in Almati; the Third Summit in 2010 at Istanbul, and the Fourth Summit in 2014 at Shanghai, China. The fifth summit was due in 2018 but could not be organized so far.

The last meeting of foreign Ministers was held at Dushanbe, Tajikistan in June 2019, where India was represented by India’s new Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar, who described terrorism as the gravest threat to peace and stability in Asia.