* Translation
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,
At the outset, I would like to express my gratitude to the initiator of the Conference, the Republic of Belarus, acting as the CSTO Chair, for the brilliant organization of the forum, for the invitation to participate and the opportunity to address such a representative assembly.
I am sure that an open and engaging discussion in such a reputable and well-informed audience will help all of us to better understand the processes taking place in the vast Eurasian space and develop new forward-looking ideas and initiatives.
The world is going through difficult times, and first of all it concerns the Eurasian continent. The erosion of the security architecture has led to a large-scale security crisis in the European part of our giant continent. Hotbeds of conflict persist in other regions – in the Middle East, South and East Asia. Recently some of them have noticeably intensified, others remain dormant, but retain significant destructive potential. Moreover, there is an increasing crisis of confidence between the actors of these processes, which makes it difficult to find solutions.
At the same time, against the background of traditional security instruments dating back decades and having roots in the Cold War era, new associations are being built in Eurasia, which we can consider as structural elements of the future architecture of regional and, more broadly, Eurasian security.
We are not talking about the establishment of new military-political alliances. Rather, we can say that this form of grouping of states has outlived itself today and is archaic. The new associations consider security in a much broader sense, not limited to purely military-political issues. They are of a network nature, where the influence of one “core” state is no longer decisive, where the unification of efforts, consideration of mutual interests, and the search for common areas of action come to the fore.
Moreover, even those structures that were originally created in order to strengthen security have long crossed these limits and are developing today as organizations of broad, multifaceted cooperation. There is a growing understanding that security is impossible without economic and social development, the solution of humanitarian issues and the search for answers to civilization- and culture-related questions. The understanding that the key to sustainable security is the achievement of sustainable development goals is becoming global.
Therefore, a special role is being played by associations of states focused not on rallying traditional allies, but on forming a circle of like-minded people, building bridges, a broad dialogue, and searching for common grounds for cooperation. Such associations include the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia.
Today, CICA unites 28 states covering over 90% of the territory of Asia, the largest and most populous continent on the planet. While a number of regional structures around the globe are facing problems of new goal-setting in a changing world, stagnation and even crisis of further development, CICA which recently marked its 30th anniversary, continues to grow, actively evolve and meet the challenges of the time.
This was evidenced by the unanimous decision of the Member States adopted last October at the Astana Summit on the gradual transformation of CICA into a full-fledged international organization.
CICA brings together and successfully cooperates with Asian states that are members of regional security organizations, such as the CSTO, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the League of Arab States, ASEAN and others. This makes it possible to consider CICA as a forum for a broad dialogue on security issues that has a cross-platform nature.
Our forum of 28 states is a flexible structure based on such basic principles as inclusiveness, strict consensus and voluntary participation. The CICA countries sometimes have very different views on certain issues on the international agenda. However, faithful adherence to these principles helps them to effectively interact and develop solutions, focusing on what unites rather than divides them.
In CICA, states that sometimes do not have diplomatic relations with each other, and even mutual diplomatic recognition, sit at the same table. This is the great value and unique feature of CICA that sets it apart from other organizations operating in the region.
Ladies and gentlemen,
CICA as a pan-Asian cooperation organization fits perfectly into the concept of the Greater Eurasian Partnership and may provide a good foundation for promoting this initiative among Asian states. You may recall how effectively the People's Republic of China has previously used this platform to advance its Belt and Road Initiative.
In this context, it is rather important to strengthen the Asian pillar of the Eurasian partnership by enhancing the CICA platform. CICA's unique membership and broad agenda are meant to complement, not to conflict with other regional formats such as the SCO, CSTO, EAEU and others. Overall, CICA provides an unparalleled multilateral platform for pan-Asian political dialogue that complements other multilateral formats and mechanisms.
CICA's institution of observer and partner organizations allows to harness their potential to achieve common goals as a network. Therefore, CICA can become one of the “shareholders” of the Greater Eurasian Partnership, complementing other regional formats and enabling the involvement of the countries of the Near and Middle East, which are currently not covered by this process.
CICA has already proved itself as a pan-Asian security structure and is a de facto international organization. That said, one of CICA’s advantages is the absence of internal bloc grouping, which sets it apart from other organizations such as, for example, the OSCE.
Our organization has functioning institutions and has developed many forms of practical interaction. CICA has a clear mandate, which is the Catalogue of Confidence Building Measures, providing for five dimensions, with the economic dimension being more developed than the military-political one for objective reasons, while the dimension of new challenges and threats is developing quite actively, and the human dimension is not skewed towards purely human rights issues.
The Catalogue of Confidence Building Measures is a document, unique in the world history of diplomacy, in which the Member States agreed on joint approaches to interaction in order to build confidence by upholding the “simple-to-complex” principle – first establishing confidence, then, on this basis, building full cooperation that leads to greater mutual security, which, in turn, is the prerequisite for sustainable development.
Our Catalogue consists of five broad dimensions of interaction: military-political, new challenges and threats, economic, environmental, and human.
CICA has distinct advantages, such as sensitivity to geopolitical reality, low level of politicization, absence of bloc mentality, genuine equality of participants, with no leaders or laggards, no major or minor leagues, pragmatic approach to interaction in certain areas with a unified agenda.
We are always ready to engage with those who are interested in partnership.
I conclude by wishing the Conference every success and its participants interesting and fruitful deliberations.
Thank you for your attention.
Minsk, 26-27 October 2023
