CICA

Magzhan Kuanyshbayev

Loud international initiatives of Kazakhstan have always been designed to embody its active diplomacy and caring for the fate of the world. There is nothing to hide; they are also considered as a subject for pride, confirming the growing authority of the Republic on the world arena, not a single country in CIS and even Russia can not show off with so many ideas. Unfortunately, most of the proposals, whether on the CIS integration, the creation of the Eurasian Union, Customs Union, the ten steps towards ordinary people, a dialogue of world religions, and other things, while being realized turn into boring and marginally useful meetings.
Take, for example, the initiative of convening the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA). For the first time it was heard from the UN tribune already way back in 1992. And it must be recognized that from the beginning it has been severely criticized both inside Kazakhstan and abroad, mainly for amateurism and ambitions of a small country in global standards to position itself as a great power.
But the mechanism was launched. It required long preparatory work, first at the level of authorized representatives, then foreign ministers. And gradually the CICA was able to position itself as one of the major player in international politics. Successful debut even allowed reconsidering that only great powers have an opportunity to start major initiative. 2002 and 2006 summits drew promising contours of the project under the auspices of Astana. Forum expanded, and every member sought to find new forms of cooperation and way of disputes resolving. The very fact of such great powers membership as Russia, China, Iran, or enmity India and Pakistan, Israel and Palestine has enabled the CICA to claim uniqueness of its kind. 
But over time meetings started to lose their practical value focusing on the formulation and harmonization of routine and purely theoretical instruments which were not binding for any responsibilities, thus Kazakhstan’s initiative hang in the air. Partners’ interest began to dull. Rare attempts to present wishful as achieved doomed to fail. This is in particularly true in the case of defusing tensions between India and Pakistan in 2002. Then Kazakh diplomats hastened to announce that CICA became the platform where the conflicting parties found compromise. Official Delhi even had to apply to the Foreign Ministry of Kazakhstan with a request not to invoke this fact as inconsistent truth.
Even the chair country — Kazakhstan for some reasons avoided to make real steps to enhance interaction and confidence-building measures in the Asian continent. There is an impression that Astana did not have enough determination to raise topical themes, play the role of moderator in the process of finding the exits from the complex international and regional issues. But inertia was generally prevailing, for example, Palestinian Ambassador Mohammad Tarshahani called to exploit the potential of the CICA in the settlement process in the Middle East. In his opinion existing treaties and legal basis made it possible to discuss these issues. But the wishes of such plan remained unanswered.
However there is also another reason why Kazakhstan’s initiative started to lose its weight. The fact is that since the early 2000’s there are an overlaps in the activities of the CICA and another rapidly growing Asian structure — the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Key members of CICA — Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran — have gradually shifted to the SCO, moving «Kazakhstan prototype of the OSCE in Asia» to the second place. 
In such circumstances, for our foreign affairs ministry it becomes increasingly difficult to convince colleagues to participate in the club meetings, it is hard not only to seek the required quorum, but even proper level of representation. Even entrance into the CICA of the new countries, like Thailand, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, has been unable to reverse the loss of the significance of the once loud initiatives. The signing of «the fundamental documents of the Council», have been presented as «the landmark achievements of Kazakhstan’s diplomacy» did not become an obstacle to the continuation of armed conflicts between CICA member countries.
In a meanwhile, financial and organizational burdens of CICA are proudly carried by Kazakhstan alone. It has to be recognized that this is not very cheap. What is the purpose of organizing a forum just for the forum itself, when for 17 years in its history, there are not any real fruits, except for paperwork? What is the sense of fragmentation and means to advance ideas that do not have any value to other countries except Kazakhstan? Perhaps that is why one of our diplomats when asked about the future of the CICA said from the deep heart: this is originally dead born child.

Sacrifices for another regular summit
In recent days largest geophysical laboratory “Borovoye” belonging to the five best in the world was almost demolished. This is all because of the fact that at the place near the base of scientists will be an international summit on collective security with 7 presidents. «Since there is government ruling for preparation for the summit, signed by Prime Minister Masimov, provincial officials have started to execute instructions without inviting heads of observatory. Comments on the situation are given from central office in Kurchatov National Nuclear Centre of Kazakhstan by its CEO Doctor of Sciences, professor, academician Kayrat KADYRZHANOV “I would say that it is inhumane to evict people with threats especially in winter. I think that in any civilized country where such activities take place, nobody treats population like that”.

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