Kazakhstan offers to hold Congresses of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions under the auspices of the United Nations

W YORK. September 21. KAZINFORM /Muratbek Makulbekov/ "Kazakhstan offers to hold Congresses of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions under the auspices of the United Nations," Kazakh Leader Nursultan Nazarbayev told taking the floor at the General Debate of the 66th session of the UNGA in New York.

"We have succeeded in convening the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA), which I proposed nineteen years ago.

Today, some 29 countries, representing nearly half the world's population, are among its participants.

Last year, Kazakhstan became the first CIS country to chair the Organization on Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). We have provided an impetus to all dimensions in the work of that organization.

We succeeded in holding the OSCE Summit in Astana, the first such event in the last 11 years.

The adoption of the Astana Declaration has strengthened the OSCE in the interests of creation of a cooperative and indivisible security community across the Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian regions.

Kazakhstan has called for the establishment of a Platform for Co-operative Eurasian Security by combining, in the long term, the OSCE and CICA capabilities," the President stated.

"This year, Kazakhstan has assumed an important mission - the Chairmanship of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

We have focused our Chairmanship on international and regional security, a dialogue between the Islamic world and the West and the efforts to counter Islamophobia and enhance the regimes of nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

The OIC's response to a humanitarian crisis in Somalia has become the latest test for the organization.

We have managed to raise some 350 million U.S. dollars for programmes to deliver food and medical supplies and provide economic rehabilitation of Somalia," the President went on.

"Third, representatives of more than 140 ethnic groups and 40 religious denominations. live in our society in peace and harmony.

Astana regularly hosts Congresses of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions. We have offered to hold these forums under the auspices of the United Nations.

That represents our contribution to the global dialogue on confidence building in the world," Nursultan Nazarbayev said.