The Executive Director of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) called on the Foreign Minister to express his appreciation for Thailand’s active role within CICA and expressed hope that Thailand could contribute to the cooperation framework’s impact, particularly in supporting the confidence building measures (CBMs) in the military-political dimension among the CICA member states.
Mr. Cinar Aldemir, the Executive Director of CICA, met with Foreign Minister, Kasit Piromya on 28 March 2011 at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and expressed CICA’s appreciation to Thailand for hosting the CICA Business Forum and SMEs Networking on 30-31 March 2011, whereby the CICA members’ SMEs’ experts and business sector would have an excellent opportunity to take advantage of and enhance close economic cooperation in the cooperation framework, thus creating peace and stability among the CICA member states.
This adds, Mr. Aldemir noted, to a long list of Thailand’s contributions to CICA which include hosting the Special Working Group and Senior Officials’ Committee in 2007, a trilateral meeting between Thailand, Turkey and Kazakhstan in January 2010 to exchange experience between the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) and CICA on CBMs, as well as Thailand’s active high level participation in the CICA summits and ministerial meetings.
Foreign Minister Kasit took note of Mr. Aldemir and the Turkish CICA Chairmanship’s desire to increase cooperation in the political-military dimension, and expressed the view that CICA could contribute to CBMs by encouraging moderation in Islamic countries. He added that CICA could additionally act as a bridge between the West and Iran, particularly since CICA has both Israel and Iran in a constructive dialogue within the cooperation framework.
Foreign Minister Kasit further stressed to the CICA Executive Director that Thailand gave high priority to humanitarian assistance and disaster management, which could be further supported through the use of the Utapao naval airbase as an Asian launch pad for humanitarian assistance. He also said that CICA’s experience with energy security could prove to be invaluable with regards to the economic dimension of cooperation within the framework.
For further information, please contact the Press Division, Department of Information, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tel.02-6435170, Fax.02-6435169, E-mail: div0704@mfa.go.th