Head of Lithuania’s diplomacy is taking part in the third Summit Meeting of the countries that are members of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia. The countries and organizations with observer’s status are also participating. The meeting is taking place on 6-8 June in Istanbul.

Lithuania’s Foreign Minister highlighted the parallels of the OSCE and CICA activities in strengthening the regional cooperation. Lithuania will chair the OSCE in 2011.

“CICA and OSCE participating states share many borders and rivers, debate common challenges and opportunities, strive to create secure, democratic and prosperous societies. I believe the two entities can find synergies, they can share experiences”, Minister A.Ažubalis said.

The summit in Turkey mainly focuses on the issues of threats to security and stability in Eurasia.

Lithuania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs also attended a special meeting of foreign ministers from CICA members, OSCE Asian Partners for Cooperation and OSCE Troika.

Minister A.Ažubalis is taking part in the events as a member of the OSCE Troika at the invitation of Kazakhstan’s and Turkey’s foreign ministers. The Troika is currently comprised of Lithuania, Greece and Kazakhstan.

In Istanbul, Lithuania’s head of diplomacy also met with OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Kazakhstan's Secretary of State and Foreign Minister Kanat Saudabayev. Future of the dialogue on European security, possibilities for holding the OSCE summit, threats posed by terrorism and drug trafficking, constructive cooperation of Lithuania and Kazakhstan in the OSCE troika and the situation in Kyrgyzstan were discussed during this bilateral meeting.

The dialogue on European security is designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the implementation of the OSCE mechanisms and commitments in security matters, to establish means and tools for the improvement of conflict prevention, decision making and the system of early warning about security threats in the OSCE space.

During a meeting with Secretary General of the OSCE Marc Perrin de Brichambaut, Minister A.Ažubalis discussed possible priorities of Lithuania’s OSCE Chairmanship in 2011. The Secretary General informed about his plans to visit Lithuania on 8-9 July.

Lithuania’s Foreign Minister also met with his counterparts from Bahrain, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Turkey and United Arab Emirates, as well as with Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Ján Kubiš. During the event, Lithuania’s head of diplomacy also had conversations with Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev and President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev.

The Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia was established in 1992 with the aim of strengthening security and stability in Asia by using the peaceful measures of multilateral cooperation. Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Palestine, Republic of Korea, Russia, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and Uzbekistan are members of CICA.