RUSSIA-LED ALLIANCE TO PULL OUT TROOPS
The president of Kazakhstan announced Tuesday that a Russian-led security alliance will start pulling out its troops from the Central Asian nation in two days after completing its mission.
The mostly Russian troops were deployed to Kazakhstan last week by the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a military alliance of six former Soviet states, at the president’s request amid the worst public unrest the former Soviet nation has faced since gaining independence 30 years ago.
Protests over soaring fuel prices erupted in the oil and gas-rich Central Asian nation of 19 million on Jan. 2 and spread across the country, with slogans reflecting wider discontent over the country’s authoritarian government. Over the next few days, the demonstrations turned violent, with dozens of civilians and law enforcement officers killed.
In Almaty, Kazakhstan’s former capital and largest city, protesters set government buildings on fire and briefly seized the airport. The unrest was largely quelled by the weekend.
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has blamed the unrest on foreign- “terrorists” and said that his request for help was justified.
“When this decision was being made, we could have completely lost control over Almaty, which was being torn apart by terrorists. Had we lost Almaty, we would have lost the capital and the entire country,” Tokayev told Kazakhstan’s parliament Tuesday.
The president said the alliance will start withdrawing its troops in two days — a process that will take no longer than 10 days.
Kazakhstan’s government resigned last week in one of several concessions aimed at mollifying the protesters, along with a 180-day cap on fuel prices and the ouster of Nursultan Nazarbayev, the country’s former longtime leader, from his influential post of head of the National Security Council.
Kazakhstan’s Interior Ministry on Tuesday reported that 9,900 people were detained over the unrest.