Iran’s Raisi arrives in Astana, Kazakhstan, for CICA summit

During the two-day visit, the president will hold bilateral meetings with heads of state present in the CICA summit.

CICA is a conference aimed at strengthening integrated cooperation on safeguarding peace, security and stability in Asia and is currently comprised of 27 main members as well as eight countries and five regional and international organizations that have observer status.

The current CICA summit will be attended by presidents of Iran, Iraq, Qatar, Kyrgyzstan, Palestine, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkey, the Azerbaijan Republic and Uzbekistan.

One of their main objectives during the current summit is discussing and approving the change in the structure of the conference to a regional and international organization.

Raisi told reporters before departure for Astana that cooperation within regional and international organizations paves the way for closer ties with neighbors and for multilateralism and stressed his government’s attention to regional institutions in foreign policy.

He added that Iran can link itself with the economic infrastructure in Asia through cooperation with such organizations as CICA.

The president said Iran has already built “reciprocal trust” with neighbors and is now ready for playing the role of a powerful government.