The idea of a Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) was put forward by President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan at the 47th Session of the UN General Assembly in 1992. The aim of the Conference is to create an Asian forum for dialogue to solve key regional problems and promote cooperation among the member countries.
At present CICA comprises 20 countries: Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, the UAE, Palestine, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, Uzbekistan and the Republic of Korea. The United States, Japan, Ukraine, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and Qatar as well as the UN, the Arab League and the OSCE have observer status. Vietnam and Iraq have officially applied for a full membership status. Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh have said they would like to become observers.
The fist CICA summit took place in 2002 and the second in 2006 (the venue in both cases was Alma-Ata). Vladimir Putin represented Russia at both summits.
The current President of CICA is the Republic of Kazakhstan which will hand over the presidency for the period of 2010-2012 to Turkey at the forthcoming third summit in Istanbul on June 7-8, 2010.
The CICA Secretariat was created in 2006 as a permanent working body with strictly administrative and technical functions, financed by voluntary contributions of the member countries. The Secretariat has its headquarters in Alma-Ata. Its Executive Director is Dulat Bakishev (Kazakhstan).
The CICA activities proceed in the framework of regular meetings of the Special Working Group and the Committee of Senior Officials on specific directions of confidence measures in the economic, environmental and humanitarian fields and on new challenges and threats. Member states act as coordinators in various areas of interaction: Kazakhstan on confidence measures in the humanitarian dimension, Iran on fighting illegal drug trafficking, Turkey on counteracting new threats and challenges, Israel on agriculture, Tajikistan on cooperation in the field of tourism, and South Korea on information technologies and energy security.
The Russian side, as coordinator (jointly with Kazakhstan and Thailand) on confidence measures in promoting business opportunities for small and medium enterprises and information exchange, has prepared drafts of a corresponding conceptual document and an Action Programme (Road Map) which were approved at the Committee of Senior Officials Session in Beijing in October 2009.
The Beijing session achieved a consensus on launching a discussion on the implementation of confidence building measures in the military-political sphere. Under the Kazakhstan presidency the draft Concept paper and Action Plan had been worked out and approved as the basis for further discussion. The meeting of the Committee of Senior Officials in Alma-Ata in January 2010 approved the Concept on Cooperation in the field of energy security.