MOSCOW, January 6. /TASS/. Secretary General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Stanislav Zas discussed the situation in Kazakhstan with Chairman of the CSTO Collective Security Council, Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan, as well as sending of the organization’s peacekeeping forces to this country, CSTO press secretary Vladimir Zainetdinov told reporters.
"Zas talked about the situation in Kazakhstan and the implementation of the decision of the Collective Security Council on sending the Collective Peacekeeping Forces of the CSTO to the country to normalize the situation," Zainetdinov said.
The press secretary recalled that the main goal of the Collective Peacekeeping Forces of the CSTO is to protect important state and military facilities, to assist the law enforcement forces of Kazakhstan in stabilizing the situation.
On January 2, crowds took to the streets in the cities of Zhanaozen and Aktau in the Mangystau Region, in southwestern Kazakhstan, protesting against high fuel prices. Two days later, the protests engulfed Almaty, in the country’s southeast, where the police used flashbangs to disperse the crowd, as well as other cities, including Atyrau, Aktobe (in the west), Uralsk (in the northwest), Taraz, Shymkent, Kyzylorda (in the south), Karaganda (in the northeast) and even Kazakhstan’s capital Nur-Sultan. The president imposed a two-week state of emergency in the Mangystau Region and in the Almaty Region, as well as the republic’s largest city of Almaty and the capital Nur-Sultan. On January 5, the head of the state also accepted the government’s resignation. Its members will continue to perform their tasks until a new cabinet is formed.