PRESS RELEASE

A regular meeting of the Special Working Group (SWG) of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures (CICA) was held in Almaty on 6-7 May 2008. The main purpose of the meeting was to discuss issues relating to implementation of the Confidence Building Measures in various dimensions among the Member States and prepare preliminary working documents for the Third Meeting of the CICA Ministers of Foreign Affairs scheduled to be held on August 25, 2008.

During the meeting draft concept paper on the implementation of Confidence Building Measures in the area of Illicit Drug Trafficking, which was prepared at the meeting of experts held in Tehran in December 2007 was discussed. Republic of Turkey presented a draft action plan on implementation of Confidence Building Measures in the area of New Challenges and Threats as a follow up of the meeting of experts held in Ankara on 31 January – 1 February 2008. Further discussions on both the documents will be held in the meetings of the SWG and Senior Officials Committee (SOC) scheduled to be held in Seoul on 10 – 11 June 2008. SWG also took note of the fact that Republic of Azerbaijan, Republic of Korea and Russian Federation had already prepared draft concept papers in different areas of economic dimension and were planning to hold meetings of experts in near future to finalise the drafts.

Preparatory documents for the Third Meeting of the CICA Ministers of Foreign Affairs were also discussed at the meeting. Documents are expected to be finalized at the meetings in Seoul. SWG finalized the draft Protocol to the Statute of the CICA Secretariat and recommendation to the SOC for its adoption during the meeting in Seoul. SWG also considered a number of other legal and working documents.

Ambassador of Afghanistan informed the SWG that his country was facing acute shortage of foodgrains and appealed for humanitarian aid from all the Member States. He also issued special appeal to the countries in the neighbourhood of Afghanistan for emergency sale of 200,000 tons of wheat during the months of May-June 2008.