7th CICA summit held in Azerbaijan's Baku

BAKU, Oct. 16 (Xinhua) -- The Seventh Summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) was held in Baku, the Azerbaijani capital, on Thursday.

Participants exchanged views on security and development in the CICA region, the implementation of confidence-building measures and ways to strengthen practical cooperation.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev chaired the summit and delivered a speech.

Azerbaijan's two-year CICA chairmanship has helped advance cooperation in areas such as transport, connectivity, digitalization, environment, tourism, education, science and technology, while strengthen CICA's capacity to promote dialogue, economic development and mutual understanding among member states, he said.

The summit adopted and issued the Baku Declaration of the Seventh CICA Summit.

The declaration reaffirmed member states' commitments to the UN Charter and the universally recognized norms and principles of international law, as well as their resolve to implement confidence-building measures in five dimensions -- military-political, new challenges and threats, economic, environmental and human -- as set out in the CICA Catalogue of Confidence Building Measures.

The declaration underscored the need for multilateralism and enhanced cooperation amid an increasingly complex international environment.

It also commended the progress made under Azerbaijan's CICA chairmanship in CICA's institutional development, including establishing the CICA Women Council, institutionalizing the CICA Finance Summit, and operationalizing the Partnership Network of Leading Universities.

The summit also admitted Laos as CICA's 29th full member. It extended Azerbaijan's CICA chairmanship for the 2026-2028 period and appointed Sultan Hajiyev as CICA secretary general for 2026-2030.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, as Special Representative of Chinese President Xi Jinping, attended the Summit.

Wang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, put forward four proposals to advance cooperation among CICA member states, urging efforts to jointly safeguard peace and stability, promote prosperity and revitalization, promote exchanges and mutual learning among civilization, and improve global governance.

The creation of CICA was proposed by Kazakhstan in 1992 at the 47th session of the United Nations General Assembly.

The multinational forum aims to promote peace, security and stability in Asia by developing and implementing multilateral confidence-building measures and strengthening cooperation in related areas. China is a founding member of CICA.