DUSHANBE, April 6, 2010, Asia-Plus  -- On Tuesday April 6, President Emomali Rahmon received Turkish Presidential Secretary-General, Mr. Mustafa Isen, according to presidential press service.

In the course of the talks, the two discussed a broad range of issues related to state and prospects of further expansion of bilateral cooperation between Tajikistan and Turkey.

Rahmon and Isen, in particular, discussed attraction of Turkish investments for development of Tajikistan’s economy as well as further expansion of political as well as scientific and cultural cooperation between the two countries.

On behalf of Turkey’s President Abdullah Gul, Mr. Isen invited President Rahmon to take part at the next summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) that is scheduled to take place in Istanbul, Turkey in July this year.  

Kazakhstan and Turkey will jointly host annual summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia.  During the summit, Turkey will take over rotating presidency of CICA from Kazakhstan.

Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) is an inter-governmental security forum in Asia which was initiated by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev in 1992.  In 1996, seventeen states participated in the conference and drafted the basic document.  The first CICA summit was held in 2002.  In 2006, the second CICA summit decided to accept South Korea as its member state.

CICA member states now include Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Palestine, South Korea, Russia, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Uzbekistan.

Number of member states is expected to increase to 21 after admission of Vietnam during the summit in Istanbul.