ASTANA, October 14. /TASS/. Turning the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) into a regional security organization is a reasonable decision, Russian President Vladimir Putin told the media on Friday.
"I believe that this is reasonable and relevant, as threats are many not only in Europe, but in Asia as well. I will not mention them all, you surely know them yourselves. The way I see it, this is very relevant and timely, and all participants supported it," Putin said.
He recalled that the question of creating the organization was raised back 30 years ago, when the CICA was convened for the first time.
"It seemed then that there were already enough other tools to synchronize watches on security issues. Today it has turned out that this is not so. Such additional tools, especially for the Asian region, are crucial and need to be improved," he remarked.
Putin also stressed that Kazakhstan’s first president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, was the one who initiated the CICA’s creation.
"He no longer works in this capacity, but the organization lives on. Now Kazakhstan has proposed creating an organization on its basis," Putin said.
He also drew attention to the fact that the OSCE was formed precisely in this way: first it was just a forum for discussing security issues in Europe, and then it was transformed into an organization.