The first Central Asian Forum on Security and Cooperation is scheduled to be held on July 13-14, 2023. It is organized by the Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies (KISI) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan.

The theme of the forum will be Asia in a changing world: an agenda for the future. Well-known intellectuals and politicians will attend the event from more than 20 countries of the world. The director of KISI Yerkin Tukumov in an interview with Astana times stated this.

— As we can see, complex geopolitical shifts are taking place in the world. In the context of growing globalization, new formats of regionalization are being strengthened in parallel. This creates increased competition for the establishment of new rules and mechanisms of international relations, including the security architecture. In this context, Asia is becoming a key center of political and geo-economic processes," Tukumov said.

The Central Asian Forum on Security and Development will become a fundamentally new format for dialogue and interaction of prominent thinkers and politicians to discuss the most pressing topics in the field of security and cooperation in Asia, the head of the CISC believes.

In his opinion, in the end, this forum will become an important addition to the most authoritative annual events, such as the Munich Security Conference, IISS-Shangri La Dialogue, Raisina Dialogue, and the Moscow Security Conference.

— The demand for analytics is growing every year. Currently, not only countries, but even international news agencies such as CNN and Al Jazeera are creating their own analytical centers," Yerkin Tukumov noted.

This year, the Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies celebrates its 30th anniversary. Summing up the results and talking about plans for the future, the head of KISI said:

"KISI has become widely known both domestically and in the wider Central Asia and CIS countries. We are in the world rankings, so compliance with this status is crucial thanks to our experienced staff, high-quality research and analysis. This will allow us to set even more ambitious goals for ourselves.

I have been saying for a long time that Kazakhstan needs to do more in the field of foreign policy research. It is necessary to develop research on our neighboring countries: China, Russia, Central Asian countries. We have to analyze the United States, European countries and the Islamic world.

Another important area is cooperation with international partners, understanding their views and approaches, studying methodology, holding international conferences and seminars for open discussion of pressing issues, including controversial topics. For example, why do we still have problems with visas and borders between Central Asian countries, even though we are very close countries?".

In this regard, Tukumov recalled the conference "Central Asia 2030: Looking to the Future", which was held on January 20 in January with the participation of experts from Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. During the expert meeting, the directions of cooperation and prospects of the region were discussed, ways of closer coordination were considered.

ORIENT wrote about the participation of Turkmen experts in this conference in the following materials:

Turkmen experts take part in the Central Asia-2030 meeting in Астане

Central Asia on the map of the new geo-economy: landmarks and нарративы

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