New York/Shanghai – UN Secretary-General Ban Ki- moon on Friday voiced his confidence in seeing a successful summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA), hoping China can play an important role in leading the regional body in its efforts to promote peace and development in Asia.

Ban made the remarks in an interview with reporters ahead of his trip to China, where he will take part in the summit to be held in Shanghai on May 20-21.

The Secretary-General believed the CICA provides a platform where regional leaders could build mutual trust and demonstrate their commitments to cooperation. “I have great expectation in China’s leadership and vision in leading this CICA process.”

Asia, particularly Northeast Asia, is the source of growth and innovation, and there is a huge, great expectation from the international community that this is an Asian Era, he said.

“To make it possible, Asian nations should be more united, provided their potential to further their future oriented way.”

The UN chief urged regional leaders who will attend the summit to look beyond national boundaries and adopt a future-oriented vision in terms of politics, peace and stability, economic growth.

The CICA was established in 1992 as a forum for dialogue and consultations and promotion of confidence-building measures and now groups 24 member countries and 13 observers. At the high-level conference, China will take over as the CICA host from 2014 to 2016.

At the upcoming summit, Chinese President Xi Jinping will expound on China’s views on the Asian security situation and put forward proposals for beefing up regional security dialogue and cooperation, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Cheng Guoping said Thursday.

The two-day summit will be attended by participants including 11 heads of state and ten chiefs of international organizations. The dignitaries will include Russian President Vladimir Putin, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. They are expected to discuss topics including the Asian security situation, measures to promote Asian dialogues, trust and coordination, according to Cheng. Source: Xinhua

Photo: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki- moon