BEIJING, January 7. /TASS/. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) hopes that the situation in Kazakhstan will soon stabilize, the law and order and public security in the republic will be quickly restored, SCO Secretary General Zhang Ming said in a statement, which was received by TASS on Friday.

"Maintaining internal stability and social harmony in the republic of Kazakhstan as a member state of the SCO is one of the key factors of peace and security in the region," the document says.

"We count on the earliest possible stabilization of the situation, restoration of law and order and public security in the country, ensuring the rights and interests of all representatives of the multi-ethnic and multi-confessional people of Kazakhstan," the statement says.

In his statement, the Secretary General also expressed deep condolences to the families and friends of the victims.

Protests erupted in several Kazakh cities on January 2, later growing into mass riots and attacks on government offices. Thousands of casualties have been reported, including fatalities. The Kazakh president asked the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a military alliance of former Soviet republics, for help. First peacekeeping units have already started fulfilling their tasks in Kazakhstan. The government said order has generally been restored in all of the country’s regions by the morning of January 7, while the situation is the most difficult in Almaty.

The declaration on the establishment of the SCO was signed in Shanghai in June 2001 by Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. India and Pakistan became full members of the SCO in 2017.