Nur-Sultan. January 29. INTERFAX-KAZAKHSTAN - There were no preconditions for sending the CSTO peacekeeping contingent to Kazakhstan during the January riots, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said.
"I responsibly say that there were no conversations with Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, and there were a lot of them, they were lengthy, regarding the fact that we, they say, will pay off later, of course, there was no. And there were no preconditions on the part of the Kremlin either," Tokayev stressed in an interview with the Khabar 24 state television channel aired on Saturday.
The President recalled that Kazakhstan participated in the creation of the CSTO in 1992.
"When addressing the CSTO, I was not addressing outsiders, I was actually addressing myself and my allies. Secondly, the involvement of the CSTO peacekeeping contingent was carried out in accordance with the contractual documents," Tokayev said.
The Head of State believes that "the very news of the arrival of peacekeepers in Kazakhstan played a very important psychological and frightening role for the bandits."
"It is clear that this is a force. And, by the way, this is a combined contingent. Besides Russia, there were military units of Belarus, Tajikistan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan," he said.
The situation in Kazakhstan worsened on January 2, when rallies against a sharp increase in prices for liquefied gas began in the city of Zhanaozen in the west of the country. Then they escalated into mass protests across the country with economic and political demands. According to the authorities of the country, bandits and terrorists took advantage of this, pogroms began in some regions, attacks on administrative buildings, police stations, shops. The largest city of the country, Almaty, suffered the most. From January 5 to January 19, a state of emergency was in effect in the republic.
At the request of the head of state Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, CSTO forces were sent to the country. On January 19, the CSTO peacekeepers completed their mission.
227 people were killed during the riots, including 19 law enforcement officers and military personnel.
