ANKARA, January 6. /TASS/. Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia and Turkey Sergey Lavrov and Mevlut Cavusoglu held telephone talks on Thursday, a source in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkey told TASS.
"During the conversation, the parties discussed bilateral relations, the [upcoming] meeting of the Russia-NATO Council, the latest events in Kazakhstan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Caucasus," the source said.
The talks between Russia and the United States on security guarantees are planned to be held in Geneva on January 10. On January 12, representatives of Moscow will discuss their concerns about security in Europe, as well as Russian projects related to security guarantees, at a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council in Brussels, and on January 13, at a meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna. On December 17, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs published a draft agreement with the United States on security guarantees and an agreement on security measures for Russia and NATO member states. They were handed over to US Assistant Secretary of State Karen Donfried on December 15.
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.