President Maithripala Sirisena has left for Tajikistan a short while ago to attend the 5th summit of heads of state and government on “Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA)” 2019.
According to reports, nearly 50 delegates will be accompanying the President during this three-day official visit.
The delegation left via EK-651 of Emirates Airlines at around 01.45 a.m. They are due to reach Dubai before arriving in Tajikistan.
The conference will be held for two days (14th and 15th June) in Dushanbe.
President Sirisena is scheduled to address CICA Summit on June 15. The President will have bilateral meetings with several leaders including Tajikistan President Emomali Rahmon on the sidelines of the CICA Summit in Dushanbe.
The Dushanbe Summit is a continuation of the efforts of the CICA member countries, which commenced in 2002 from the day of the first summit. The summit expects to bring together high-level delegations to adopt an ambitious Declaration covering all issues of cooperation within the CICA.
The idea of convening the CICA has been first proposed by the First President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Elbasy Nursultan Nazarbayev, on the 5th of October 1992, at the 47th Session of the United Nations General Assembly.
Sri Lanka received its observer status of the CICA in 2012 and was officially accepted as a member stated on the 15th of August 2018.
The other member states of CICA include Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Republic of Korea, Russian Federation, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.
CICA membership covers about 90 percent of the territory and population of Asia. It has another 8 states and 5 international organizations, including the UN, with observer status.
CICA membership would further enhance Sri Lanka’s bilateral, economic and trade cooperation as well as people to people contacts with the other CICA Member States, the PMD said.
CICA is different from other security mechanisms which are commonly dominated by superpowers, says the PMD. It has the characteristics of an “Asian initiative,” which values equality among members, and is led by small countries, according to the PMD.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe left for Singapore yesterday (12) for a three-day visit.
