TEHRAN – Iranian President Ayatollah Ebrahim Raisi will arrive in Astana, Kazakhstan, to participate in a regional summit aimed at fostering interaction and cooperation in Asia.

President Raisi will participate in the sixth summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) which will be held in Astana from October 12-13.

The summit will welcome 11 presidents from Azerbaijan, Iraq, Iran, Qatar, Kyrgyzstan, Palestine, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkey, and Uzbekistan, according to Kazakh media. President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko will participate as an observer at the sixth CICA summit. Vice-Presidents of Vietnam and China will also attend the summit.

Nearly 50 delegations from member states, observer states, observer organizations, partner organizations, and guests of the chairmanship are expected to attend.

Mohammad Jamshidi, the director of the Iranian president’s office for political affairs, said President Raisi will arrive in Astana on Thursday for the CICA summit. 

“We had several requests for meetings with the president, but due to the lack of opportunity, priority is given to the heads of countries that have not been met in previous meetings such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the United Nations General Assembly,” Jamshidi told state news agency IRNA. 

Jamshidi mentioned the leaders of Qatar and the Republic of Azerbaijan as personalities who requested to meet with Raisi and did not have the opportunity to meet with the president at the Shanghai meeting and the UN General Assembly.

In August last year, President Raisi met with the Executive Director of the Secretariat of CICA, Kairat Sarybay, in Tehran. 

“Iran believes that the dynamism of regional organizations is a very important factor to counter unilateralism,” Raisi said in the meeting. 
He added, “The Islamic Republic of Iran intends to effectively take advantage of the capacity of regional and international institutions to defend the rights and interests of independent countries.”

In the meeting, Sarybay also expressed hope for the continuation and strengthening of the constructive role of the Islamic Republic in the CICA mechanism to promote peace and security in the region and the world, adding, “Today, Asia has an important role in managing global developments, and CICA seeks to strengthen the role of Asian countries in the international stage.”

He added, “The focus of the activities of CICA is on strengthening the role of Asian countries in resolving the issues of the continent and preventing the involvement of non-Asian countries in the developments of this continent.”