MOSCOW, January 25. /TASS/. The peacekeeping mission of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) has confirmed the demand for collective mechanisms, CSTO former Secretary General Nikolay Bordyuzha said at a press conference dedicated to CSTO peacekeeping missions on Tuesday.
"The demand for all collective mechanisms existing in the security sphere within the framework of the CSTO was clearly confirmed by these actions (the mission in Kazakhstan - TASS)," he said. "I am deeply convinced that instability in Kazakhstan would have caused instability in the Central Asian region and, taking into account the instability of Afghanistan and sleeper terrorist cells in the Central Asian region, this would have had very serious security consequences not only for the countries in the Central Asian Region but also for China and Russia," the former secretary general explained.
According to him, these collective mechanisms - the bilateral groups of the collective rapid response force, the collective activity in the sphere of information security and in the sphere of migration policy "should develop, should be more enhanced, be more up to date."
The former secretary general emphasized that the integration would only grow, reiterating that at a meeting of the CSTO Collective Security Council which took place immediately following the deployment of peacekeeping forces to Kazakhstan, practically all presidents talked about the necessity to perfect the collective potential. "It is necessary to perfect the decision-making procedure, the equipment, the armaments of various forces - everyone talked about the necessity of deepening integration ties and increasing the level of integration," he pointed out.
Protests erupted in several Kazakh cities on January 2, escalating into mass riots with government buildings ransacked in several cities a few days later. Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said a state coup was attempted. Law and order, Kazakh authorities affirm, was restored to all of the country’s regions by the morning of January 7. On January 19, the state of emergency was lifted nationwide. According to Kazakh authorities, 225 people were killed in the upheaval and more than 4,500 were injured.