Bahrain participates in CICA’s 5th Ministerial meeting

Manama : The Kingdom of Bahrain has participated in the 5th Ministerial Meeting of the Foreign Ministers of member States of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA), hosted by China from April 27 to 28.

On the occasion, Minister’s Assistant for Foreign Affairs Abdullah bin Faisal Al Dossari gave a statement in which he touched on the challenges and fast-paced changes that threaten security, stability and future of the member countries and prevent them from attaining their common interests and goals. 

He stressed that cooperation between CICA countries should give priority to confronting extremism and terrorism, which have significantly spread to become a real threat to national security of states and have become dangerous enough to require a serious stand to be combated collectively.

He cited some of the common challenges that need a comprehensive and innovative strategy including lethal diseases, climate change and global warming, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, financial and economic crises and the increasing drug trade.

He also emphasised the importance for the region’s countries to acquire the ability to use information technology to avail of it in development efforts and in increasing regional trade and joint investments between them.

Al Dossari expressed hope that the Ministerial meeting would be the beginning of a bold step and a major turning point in promoting joint action as well as achieving the well being and prosperity of the CICA countries.

He noted that since CICA inception 20 years ago, a tangible progress has been made in many issues, most notably exchange of views on political matters and trust-building among the member states. 

On the sidelines of the event, the Minister’s Assistant for Foreign Affairs held a number of interviews and meetings with some of the participating heads of delegations and reviewed with them a number of issues.

Earlier, Chinese President Xi Jinping had delivered the opening speech and the Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs and CICA’s current Session President, Wang Yi, chaired the meeting sessions.

It is noteworthy that in addition to the Kingdom of Bahrain, CICA includes on its membership 25 other countries.

They work together for the common goals of activating dialogue and to take measures capable of strengthening security and political cooperation among the organisation’s member-States.