Kazakhstan calls for Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian security organizations to interact

    President Nursultan Nazarbayev is advocating a platform for Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian security cooperation, Kommersant writes.
    Astana hopes to create a platform for the interaction of important regional security organizations like SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization), CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization), NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) and CICA (Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia).
    The president talked about the creation of the platform during the anniversary meeting of Foreign Ministers of CICA member countries hosted by Kazakhstan in Astana.
    Besides the name of the new structure, Nazarbayev did not give any further details, goals or potential participants.
    According to a source close to the president’s Administration, Nazarbayev has in mind a platform that would unite representatives of the UN (United Nations), OSCE, CICA, NATO, CSTO, SCO, EU (European Union) and CIS (Commonwealth of the Independent States), i.e. the most important organizations dealing with security issues in Eurasian and Euro-Atlantic space.
    The idea of creating this interaction mechanism for these structures that frequently duplicate each others’ functions emerged in Astana at the time of Kazakhstan’s chairmanship in the OSCE in 2010.
    The draft project was completed only in August 2012.
    “In spite of the variety of platforms, organizations and unions in Euro-Atlantic space, and Eurasian space, the potential of cooperation in resolution of security issues is scarcely used. Our idea is called to fill this gap. We are not talking about creating another ponderous structure with a secretariat and disputes over a hierarchy of priorities. The new mechanism has to be flexible and result-oriented,” the speaker said, according to www.tengrinews.kz