Statement by
CICA Executive Director K. Sarybay at the 10th Plenary Session of the Parliamentary Assembly of Turkic-Speaking Countries
Your Excellency Chairman of Mazhilis of the Parliament of Kazakhstan Nurlan Nigmatulin,
Your Excellencies Heads of Parliamentary Delegation,
Distinguished participants and guests of the 10th TURKPA Plenary Session,
Ladies and gentlemen,
It is a great honor for me to represent the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) at the anniversary session of the Parliamentary Assembly of Turkic-Speaking Countries (TURKPA), which is being held in the spiritual capital of the Turkic world - the legendary, but significantly modernized in recent years, the city of Turkestan! I am sure that yesterday during the walk you had the chance to learn it firsthand.
The current session is devoted to the discussions on the prospects of inter-parliamentary cooperation among Turkic-speaking countries. This format of dialogue, or as it is also called, parliamentary diplomacy, has proven its worth and relevance in many regions of the world. Therefore, for a relatively young TURKPA, it is important to take stock of the first 10 years of experience, to think about its potential and strengths, taking into account the current challenges and problems of our time.
As a representative of CICA, a representative of 27 countries united by the idea of confidence building and cooperation, I believe that our mechanisms have a number of similar objectives and working principles.
First of all, it seems that both TURKPA and CICA are unique regional platforms pursuing a noble goal to develop political dialogue among states, thereby ensuring peace, stability and security in Asia and, even broader, – in Eurasia.
Another interesting fact is that all TURKPA countries are, at the same time, CICA Member States, actively supporting implementation of various confidence building measures within it. Whereas TurkPA’s status of observer at CICA testifies to the significance and effectiveness of inter-parliamentary cooperation in promoting mutually beneficial and equal cooperation in a broader sense.
Importantly, there are coinciding priorities of TURKPA and CICA in the establishment and development of regional partnership, in particular, the desire to promote political, socio-economic, cultural, humanitarian, legal and other relations between peoples and the desire to build them based on the generally recognized principles of international law.
We will be glad to see the participants of the TURKPA Secretariat in the Meeting of the CICA Ministers of Foreign Affairs, which will be held on October 11-12 in Nur-Sultan. At the upcoming Ministerial Meeting, the Ministers are expected to adopt a number of crucial decisions related to the further of the Conference, determine the modalities of its evolution with due regard to the achieved results and the interests of all CICA Member States. We look forward to substantive discussions and exchange of views on a wide range of topical issues of regional development.
Once again, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the organizers for the warm welcome, and wish the administration of the Turkestan region new successes in the improvement of the ancient city of Turkestan.
Thank you for your attention and I wish you fruitful work at the 10th Anniversary Plenary Session of the Parliamentary Assembly of Turkic-Speaking Countries!
