Tashkent, Uzbekistan, May 22
By Demir Azizov - Trend:
Trust is the most important element on the path to mutual understanding and strengthening international cooperation, according to the Uzbek President Islam Karimov.
President Karimov made the remarks at the IV Summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICMA), held in Shanghai, Uzbekistan's National News Agency (UZA) reported on May 22.
The Uzbek president stressed that today there is hardly a state or a society that does not express concern over the troubled, unbalanced political and economic developments in the modern world.
"Recently, in some parts of the world there has been a substantial growth in destabilizing factors, such as the threat of use of force and outbreaks of violence, while the threats of international terrorism, extremism, drug trafficking, interethnic and interreligious confrontation do not decrease," Karimov said.
He believes that for the conflicting parties to reconcile they need to come closer to each other in an effort to solve the existing problem.
"Otherwise, virtually all negotiations will turn into mutual complaints, and this can go on endlessly," President Karimov underscored.
The Uzbek president said he is sure that trust is the most important element and a prerequisite, without which it is practically impossible to achieve goals in any negotiation on restoration of peace and stability.
Karimov went on to say the experts' estimates show that the mutual trust is not growing, but vice versa, it is decreasing in the modern world, and first of all, in international relations.
He stressed that today the ideologies of radicalism, international terrorism, military extremism and drug trafficking are not the problems of only one country or one region, and these problems do not know any national borders.
Many experts see the causes of growing tensions in weakening of the coordinating role of international suprastate governance institutions, and primarily in weakening of common approaches to a strict observance of the international law's basic norms.
The Uzbek president also said that in this regard great attention and support need to be given to the Chinese President Xi Jinping's proposals on developing a new security concept in Asia.
He added that this concept should aim to realize such fundamental principles as mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality and cooperation.
President Islam Karimov also expressed confidence that China's forthcoming presidency of the CICMA will contribute to solving complicated security and stability problems in Asia.
Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICMA) is an international forum for strengthening cooperation on ensuring peace, security and stability in Asia.
CICMA brings together 24 states.
Edited by C.N.