Kazakhstan Calls To Put Off Asian Confidence-building Summit

Scheduled for November 8 into 10 in Alma Ata, Kazakhstan, a summit of 16 countries on the Conference for Cooperation and Confidence-Building in Asia ought to be postponed, holds the host country. As Yerlan Idrisov, its Minister of Foreign Affairs, said to the national television, adverse political developments in the world demand the summit put off to next year's initial half. Summit organisers proceed in their resolution from the Conference countries' shared interests to guarantee deep-going debates on all political and economic aspects of Asian partnership, said the minister. The initiative to establish the Conference for Cooperation and Confidence-Building in Asia came from Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev as he was addressing the 47th session of the UN General Assembly, October 1992. The Conference was gathered to revive efforts toward an efficient all-weather arrangement for Asian collective security. Sixteen countries have joined within the nine years since Conference establishment--Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Palestine, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkey and Uzbekistan. There are ten observer countries--Australia, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Lebanon, Malaysia, Thailand, Ukraine, the USA and Vietnam--and four international observer organisations--the United Nations, the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe), the League of Arab States, and the Interstate Council of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.