Being among the founding members of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building measures in Asia (CICA) Turkey is one of the most effective members of the organization. Turkey has taken over the CICA Chairmanship from Kazakhstan at the 3rd CICA Summit held in Istanbul on 7-9 June 2010 for a period of two years.

Within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Turkey, the CICA Turkish Task Force, headed by an Ambassador, was formed in November 2009 with the aim of conducting the activities with respect to CICA Turkish Chairmanship. In conjunction with the initiation of Turkey’s CICA Chairmanship at the Istanbul Summit, Ambassador Çınar Aldemir was appointed as the CICA Executive Director to the CICA Secretariat in Almaty/Kazakhstan. Currently a Turkish diplomat is also actively working in the CICA Secretariat at the director level.

In CICA where OSCE’s operational structure is adopted, the confidence building measures (CBM’s) are evaluated under 5 main areas. These are the “military-political dimension”, “economic dimension”, “environmental dimension”, “human dimension” and the “dimension on new threats and challenges”.

During Turkish Chairmanship, Turkey strives to bring in a military-political agenda to the CICA, to create a CBMs culture similar to the OSCE and to initiate an effective mechanism of dialogue within this framework. Turkey also aims to reflect her multilateral diplomatic experience attained at the UN, OSCE, EU and NATO to the CICA geography.
 
Under Turkey’s Chairmanship, 5 Special Working Group (SWG) and Senior Official Committee (SOC) Meetings (Ankara, İstanbul, Antalya, İzmir and China (Tongxiang)), 1 CICA-International Organization for Migration (IOM) Workshop (Antalya), 3 CICA Sub-Economic Group Meetings (Bangkok, Antalya, İzmir), 1 Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) Experts Meeting (İstanbul), and an Informal Meeting on the Margins of The 66th UN General Assembly has been held since June 2010.

Within the context of Turkey’s Chairmanship, CICA has a busy schedule for 2012. The CICA-IOM Briefing for the CICA Consular Officers held on 24 January 2012 in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Turkey, has been the first meeting of the year. Following the CICA-IOM Briefing, the “4th CICA Sub-Economic Group Meeting” on 27 February 2012 in İstanbul, “SWG and SOC Meetings” on 28-29 February 2012 in İstanbul, “CICA Business Forum and SMEs Networking Meeting” in cooperation with Turkish SME Development Organization (KOSGEB) on 2-4 April 2012 in İstanbul, and “CICA Tourism Ministers Meeting” on 3-5 May 2012 in İzmir are planned to be organized. The “2nd CICA Experts Meeting on Combating Desertification” on 16-17 April 2012 in Konya will follow the above mentioned meetings. In this connection, efforts are underway in cooperation between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Forestry and Water of Turkey for the establishment of “CICA Coordination Center on Combating Desertification” in Konya.