Lavrov to Attend 7th CICA Summit in Baku

The event will further advance CICA's development. Participants will also exchange views on key international and regional issues

Baku, October 15. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will attend the 7th Summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in Baku.

Russia's top diplomat arrives in Baku on Wednesday and has already met with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi.

According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, the event will "further develop CICA, including its integration into the broader perspective of cross-platform cooperation across the Eurasian space."

"Discussions are expected to cover a wide range of practical cooperation areas on the CICA agenda, including areas overseen by Russia, including support for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and ensuring international information security," the statement said, adding that participants would also exchange on international and regional issues.

The ministry said that one of the expected outcomes of the meeting is the accession of Laos to the conference as a full member.

The summit's agenda is expected to focus on issues of ensuring sustainable development in the region, strengthening connectivity across the wider continent, and addressing new challenges and threats, including in the area of international information security.

The summit is expected to produce a general policy statement and a document on raising occupational safety standards.

CICA is a multilateral dialogue platform to address important regional issues, deepening cooperation between member countries to build trust in the military-political, economic and humanitarian fields, as well as in dealing with new challenges and threats. The initiative to create this format was proposed by Nursultan Nazarbayev, the then president of Kazakhstan, in 1992.

CICA has 28 countries namely Russia, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Republic of Korea, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, Vietnam, United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, Vietnam, United Arab Emirates, Vietnam. Laos, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Philippines, Turkmenistan, United States, Ukraine, Japan, Arab League, International Organization for Migration, OSCE and Parliamentary Assembly of Turkic States.

The President of CICA is elected for a two-year term with the possibility of extension. Kazakhstan held the presidency in 2020-2024, and Azerbaijan succeeded it in December 2024. This summit is held every four years.