by Robert Moloney, The Duran:
The unstoppable process of Eurasian integration, a key pillar of the emergent multipolar international order, marches onwards. Astana, Kazakhstan, during October 12th-13th held the 6th Summit of the ‘Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia’ (CICA), a Kazakh-supported multilateral forum of dialogue and regional cooperation across Asia. CICA, which was first suggested by the Kazakh ex-President Nursultan Nazarbayev back in 1992, has developed into an important framework of security and economic development, such as in the fields of confronting terrorism and supporting enterprises. The summit brings together the heads of state and/or ministerial-level delegates from twenty-seven member states spanning the most powerful states of Asia as well as rising regional states and is a vivid demonstration of the intensifying efforts to coordinate the states of the greater Asian world towards deepening patterns of win-win cooperation.
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Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko, in his meeting with Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, noted that Asia is rising as the centre of international politics and economics, and that Asian formats of international cooperation will play a central role in international governance going into the future. He praised the rising role of Kazakhstan in particular as complementing China as the ‘locomotive in Asia’. Belarus is at present an observer in this format, looking at attaining full membership: Kuwait was granted full membership during this summit. Lukashenko also observed that the development of CICA would overlap and support the goals of other regional cooperation formats such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. Indeed, it has been agreed that CICA will move from being an international forum to a proper international cooperation organisation aiming at fostering regional stability and development in accordance with international law and the norms of the UN Charter: a statement was adopted to transform CICA into a full international organisation complete with ministerial Council formats and office of Secretary General. A memorandum of understanding was also signed between CICA and the Eurasian Economic Union, which will further harmonize and streamline the process of regional economic development and integration.
Russian President Vladimir Putin noted that the ‘world is becoming truly multipolar’, and this process requires the security and economic stability and development of the greater Asian region. As Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said, ‘the balance of power has changed and supply chains have been disrupted’, and these problems require urgent reform of the international security architecture. On the CICA agenda were such topics as the global food crisis (which threatens famine in many developing nations), the ongoing ‘revolution’ in the global financial system as nations increasingly move away from the dollar-hegemony system, and the problem of terrorism arising from the situation in Afghanistan and the need for economic assistance to rebuild that nation. These are issues already on the agenda of the SCO, the CSTO, the EEU, and such other regional formats, but CICA offers to bring a wider array of nations into the processes of international governance across the region.
President Erdoğan, who received the Order of Dostyk from President Tokayev, took the occasion to continue contacts on the sidelines of the CICA summit with President Putin on various issues of bilateral and international interest and concern, such as energy supply. The two presidents discussed the potential for another joint partnership in developing Turkish nuclear power plants based upon the success of the Akkuyu NPP. Putin praised the Turkish side for their reliability as a partner for gas transit to Europe and for their support for Turkstream, which was supposedly the target of recent terror-plotting. It was also noted that plans are in the making for a joint Russian-Turkish project to construct another gas pipeline across Turkiye to act as a gas hub for sale and export to third-party nations. The Russian-Turkish relationship clearly continues to strengthen, and this model of stable and positive international cooperation is both positive for regional stability, and a pragmatic model that other states across Europe would do well to emulate.
On the initiative of the Russian side, a trilateral meeting was also convened between Russian President Putin, Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov, and Tajik President Rahmon Emomali. Putin thanked the other two presidents and expressed the desire to support the development of both nations as equally important allies and partners to Russia. This meeting comes in the wake of the recent border clashes between the two Central Asian nations, which are a pressing unresolved area of international political conflict in the region: we will have to await and see if further constructive progress can be made towards the pacification and resolution of this security rivalry. President Putin also met with the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and reasserted his nation’s support for the Palestinian cause and the necessity of a just settlement on that issue, for which Abbas thanked him, noting that Palestine could not rely upon leaving the peace process to be monopolised by the American side (the reasons for this should, of course, be obvious).
