Delegations walked out of the seventh summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia, in Baku, on Thursday as Israeli President Isaac Herzog began his address, a protest captured on video from the hall.
The accounts agree on the core and diverge on the roster. Reporting based on The Jerusalem Post confirms walkouts by representatives of Iran, Turkey, Kuwait, Pakistan and the Palestinian Authority, and notes that Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates remained in the hall. Iranian state affiliated media put the total at 13 delegations, adding Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Qatar. That wider list is disputed in one material detail: eyewitnesses at the conference said the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, remained in his seat and listened to the address, contradicting the Iranian account that the Qatari delegation left. This story carries the confirmed five as fact and the wider list as an Iranian claim, flagged in the data note.
Iran used the moment offensively. Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi urged member states to expel Israel from CICA, describing it as the main source of insecurity in Asia, and condemned US and Israeli military actions across the region. No expulsion move was taken by the forum.
The summit itself was the story Azerbaijan wanted: a rare gathering in one room of converging and opposing Middle Eastern and Asian leaders, with Herzog meeting President Ilham Aliyev in Baku earlier in the week. The walkout instead reprised the protest at the UN General Assembly on September 24, when delegations left as Israel’s prime minister began speaking, and it underlines that Israel’s regional normalisation drive now runs against an organised, camera ready counter ritual at every multilateral stage. Status: protest held, no formal CICA action followed.