BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 14. The final decision regarding the membership of Laos in the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) is set to be approved at the Seventh Summit, which will take place in Baku on October 15, bringing the total number of the organization's member states to 29.
This was announced in a statement published on the official website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan.
According to the ministry, a signing ceremony regarding Laos's membership in CICA was held in Baku on October 14.
The ceremony was attended by Azerbaijan's Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov, Laos's Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Thongsavanh Phomvihane, CICA Secretary General Kairat Sarybay, and a representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan, acting as the depository for the organization's founding documents.
During the event, Thongsavanh Phomvihane signed the key founding documents of CICA: the "Declaration on the principles guiding relations between the CICA member states" (dated September 14, 1999) and the Almaty Act (dated June 4, 2022).
Speaking at the signing ceremony, the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Laos, as well as the Secretary-General of CICA, emphasized the significance of Laos's membership in the organization, congratulated the country on this occasion, and expressed their best wishes regarding its future membership.
CICA is a multi-national forum for enhancing cooperation towards promoting peace, security and stability in Asia. It is a forum based on the recognition that there is a close link between peace, security and stability in Asia and in the rest of the world. The Member States, while affirming their commitment to the UN Charter, believe that peace and security in Asia can be achieved through dialogue and cooperation leading to a common indivisible area of security in Asia where all states co-exist peacefully and their peoples live in peace, freedom and prosperity.
The two founding documents of CICA are the Declaration on the Principles Guiding Relations between the CICA Member States adopted at the First Meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs held in Almaty on 14 September 1999 and the Almaty Act, charter of CICA, adopted at the First Summit held in Almaty on 4 June 2002. These two documents became the stepping stone towards the future evolution of CICA.
