After a week of deadly unrest in Kazakhstan, Russia-led forces who were sent to quell riots are preparing to withdraw as President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev nominated a new prime minister.
Tokayev said on Tuesday that the contingent of troops he requested from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a military alliance of ex-Soviet states, would begin leaving the troubled Central Asian country in two days, with the pullout to take no more than 10 days. Kazakhstan and Russia have framed last week’s crisis as a coup attempt assisted by foreign “terrorists”, but have provided little evidence to support the claim. The clashes, in which citizens and police were killed, grew out of a peaceful protest against an energy price rise in the west of the oil-rich nation. Kazakh security forces have detained almost 10,000 people over the unrest, Kazakhstan’s interior ministry said on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Tokayev, who earlier sacked the government in an attempt to ease dissent, nominated Alikhan Smailov as prime minister, and the lower house of parliament swiftly voted him in for the job. Smailov, 49, served as first deputy prime minister in the previous cabinet which Tokayev dismissed.
