Baku, 15 October. On the sidelines of the seventh CICA summit, Kazakhstan's President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev met Israeli President Isaac Herzog and confirmed Kazakhstan's position: tensions should be reduced and conflicts settled exclusively by diplomatic means. Later, when Herzog spoke at the plenary session, representatives of more than ten countries left the hall.
According to the presidential office, the sides discussed prospects for cooperation with an emphasis on trade, economic and investment ties, as well as the situation in the Middle East. Tokayev said the results of Herzog's April visit to Astana gave a significant boost to relations between the two countries. Herzog welcomed Kazakhstan's accession to the Board of Peace and called it an important contribution to strengthening peace and stability.
When Herzog took the floor, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and representatives of more than ten countries left the hall. Sources differ on the number of delegations: Turkish outlets write about more than ten countries, Iranian media name Iran and 12 other delegations, nearly half of the 28 attending the summit. Israeli outlets reported that Qatar's emir stayed in the hall, while Iranian media claimed the opposite.
Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Kazem Gharibabadi urged CICA members to expel Israel from the organisation. In his own speech Fidan criticised Israeli policy and called for an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. Herzog said peace cannot exist alongside terror, nor cooperation alongside boycotts.
Background
Israel is among the CICA participants; the organisation has 28 states.
