ALMATY. June 4 (Interfax-AVN) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has called on the participants in the summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) to work out a mechanism for creating a unified security area on the Asian continent.
Speaking at the conference, Putin called for discussing a mechanism that would help settle old conflicts and prevent new ones.
Among the main threats to the region, Putin mentioned terrorism, the growth of extremist sentiments, the spread of weapons of mass destruction, international crime, and drug trafficking.
Russia is actively cooperating with the Asian countries in fighting these challenges, he said.
"However, the situation on the Asian continent is still alarming: a fire is raging in the Middle East, explosions occur nearly every day, and peaceful civilians suffer," the Russian president said.
Also causing serious concerns are tensions between India and Pakistan, which "greatly destabilize the situation in the whole southern Asian subcontinent," he said.
Putin called on the leaders of the region to do their utmost to help settle the conflict between India and Pakistan.
Talking about new global threats, one should not forget about their original causes, which are rooted in poverty, backwardness, and a growing gap between developed and developing countries.
The Russian president said he believes many of these problems can be solved through economic cooperation, the drafting of unified trade regulations in line with WTO standards, the joint implementation of energy, communications, and transportation projects, and the regulation of migration flows.
"The Conference will help converge the positions of countries on many issues, and documents adopted at the summit will give a direction to our efforts towards forming a new image of Asia," the president said.
Putin recalled that St. Petersburg will soon host a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which is to deal with a number of fundamental organizational issues and define areas of cooperation between its signatories on security and economic development.
"Russia and its partners in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Collective Security Treaty, and the Eurasian Economic Community are determined to implement specific measures to promote integration processes in Asia, first of all in such spheres as combating terrorism and active social-economic interaction," Putin said.