Such a measure is envisaged in the Catalogue of Confidence-Building Measures, which is planned to be adopted at the meeting.
"Adoption of the Catalogue may make a considerable contribution to the cause of multilateral cooperation in political, anti-terrorist, humanitarian and other areas," Lavrov noted as he addressed the conference.
"It is obvious that the next step should be to create a mechanism for implementing confidence-building measures recorded in the Catalogue. In particular, already now one could begin working out parameters and conditions for an exchange of information about components of armed forces," the Russian foreign minister noted.
Participants of the Conference are 16 states: Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, Kazakhstan, China, Kirghizia, Mongolia, Palestine, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkey and Uzbekistan. The US, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Australia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand and Ukraine are taking part in the meeting as observers.
This is the second meeting of CICA foreign ministers. The first meeting, held in September 1999, adopted the Declaration of Principles regulating relations between CICA member-countries.
Under an instruction contained in the fundamental document of the Conference - the Almaty Act - adopted at the first summit of CICA in 2002, a Catalogue of Confidence-Building Measures in Asia has been drafted for approval at the ministerial meeting. It is of great importance, in the view of the Russian side.
Special attention in the Catalogue is given to cooperation between Conference participants in the struggle against international terrorism. Russia believes that adoption of the Catalogue may give an impulse to CICA finding its niche in multilateral cooperation in the Asian region on the basis of mutual respect for interests and in strict conformity with the UN Charter, recognised norms and principles of international law.
