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CSTO defense ministers on January 13 to set schedule for troops pullout from Kazakhstan

Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has requested that the CSTO ends its peacekeeping mission from Thursday

MOSCOW, January 12. /TASS/. The CSTO on Wednesday said its Council of Defense Ministers will convene for a video call on January 13 to determine the schedule for the withdrawal of the group’s peacekeeping forces from Kazakhstan.

The group has drafted a proposal for the decision and sent it to the heads of CSTO member states, Vladimir Zainetdinov, a CSTO press secretary told TASS. "The schedule for the withdrawal of CSTO’s collective peacekeeping forces will be approved by the CSTO’s Council of Defense Ministers, which will convene for a special session by video link on January 13," he said.

Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has requested that the CSTO ends its peacekeeping mission from January 13, the group’s spokesman said. CSTO Secretary General Stanislav Zas said earlier that the troops pullout will start on January 13 and will take 10 days to complete.

Protests erupted in several Kazakh cities on January 2, escalating into mass riots with ransacked buildings and attacks on police, military servicemen and government offices in many cities, mostly in Almaty. Thousands of people were injured, while the exact number of fatalities hasn’t been reported. Tokayev requested assistance from the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization and the bloc deployed peacekeepers to Kazakhstan. The country declared a state of emergency from January 5. Law and order were generally restored to all of the country’s regions, Kazakh authorities said.