Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah is in Tajikistan to attend the 5th summit of heads of state and government on Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) 2019.

Abdullah will give a speech at the summit. So far, he has met some leaders of the Central Asian countries on the sidelines of the conference. 

“We discussed bilateral relations, cooperation, peace and security developments. I thanked Rahmon for hosting the Summit and paying special attention to Afghanistan,” Abdullah tweeted after meeting the Tajikistan president. 

Member states of CICA include Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Republic of Korea, Russian Federation, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

CICA membership covers about 90 percent of the territory and population of Asia. It has another 8 states and 5 international organizations, including the UN, with observer status.

CICA membership would further enhance Sri Lanka’s bilateral, economic and trade cooperation as well as people to people contacts with the other CICA Member States, the PMD said.

CICA is different from other security mechanisms which are commonly dominated by superpowers, says the PMD. 

It has the characteristics of an “Asian initiative,” which values equality among members, and is led by small countries, according to the PMD.