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CSTO coped with mission in Kazakhstan at high professional level — foreign ministry

On January 2, protests erupted in several Kazakh cities, escalating into mass riots with government buildings getting ransacked in several cities, in the first place, in Almaty, a few days later

NUR-SULTAN, January 19. /TASS/. The CSTO peace-keeping contingent coped with its mission in Kazakhstan at a high professional level, the director of the Kazakh Foreign Ministry’s Eurasian integration department, Alexander Sinyagovsky, told a news briefing on Wednesday.

"We believe that the CSTO performed its mission in Kazakhstan at a high professional level. We note the organization’s role and its contribution to stabilizing the situation. The peace-keeping mission was performed in the spirit of allied mutual support," he said.

Protests erupted in several Kazakh cities on January 2, escalating into mass riots with government buildings getting ransacked in several cities, in the first place, in Almaty, a few days later. The ensuing violence left scores of people injured, with fatalities also being reported. Subsequently, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev turned to the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) requesting assistance from the Russia-led bloc. As a result, peacekeepers were deployed to Kazakhstan. Law and order, Kazakh authorities affirm, have been restored to all of the country’s regions by now.

The Russian Defense Ministry said on Wednesday that the last units of Russian peacekeepers under Colonel-General Andrey Serdyukov had left Kazakhstan for Russia.