OREANDA-NEWS. On August 25, 2008 Marat Tazhin, Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan has held a number of bilateral meetings with Foreign Ministers of CICA member-states in the course the 3rd CICA Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Almaty, reported the Official website http://en.government.kz.

Salaheddin Al-Bashir, Foreign Minister of Jordan – one of the new states that have been granted full membership in the CICA – expressed hope that cooperation in the framework of the Council would be most fruitful, as the CICA Council was an answer to the present day challenges. “Kazakhstan and Jordan possess a great potential for cooperation – as has been outlined by Heads of the two states – including that in political and economic realms. We have discussed investment partnership with Mr. Tazhin and I believe that our state have the necessary potential for this”, he said.

Turkish State Minister Mehmet Simsek said that his country will continue to support Kazakhstan. “Our meetings in the CICA framework have always been held at the top level”, - he emphasized. As it has been reported earlier, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev proposed to make Turkey the next CICA Chairman. In this regard Mehmet Simsek said that Turkey will apply its best efforts, while holding the chairmanship, to achieve the set goals of the organization. “We will be supporting all the initiatives in the framework of the CICA, as we are an active member of the Council ourselves”, the Turkish representative said.

As a result of the meeting a number of MoUs have been signed between the CICA Secretariat and international organizations. These memorandums bring the Council to a qualitatively new level in practical application of the confidence-building measures.

In his speech President of Kazakhstan emphasized that the CICA members were faced with important tasks and that the global community should target all its efforts into the fight against international terrorism, religious extremism, organized crime, trafficking in drugs and illegal migration.

Speaking about the problems in the region he mentioned the complicated situation in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the conflict in South Ossetia. Besides, he called to addressing – through diplomatic methods only – the situation around Iran’s nuclear program. Among other challenges and threats that will be defining the global situation in the nearest future N. Nazarbayev named the financial crisis, growing oil prices and inflating food prices.

At the same time President of Kazakhstan emphasized that the CICA became a real factor in international relations and served as an effective instrument for maintaining security and cooperation in Asia. Its viability is grounded in sincere desire and hope of peoples of the region to live in a safe world and in the region’s objective demand for an open and constructive dialog.