The Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of Turkic States held an extraordinary videoconference meeting on Tuesday to discuss the recent developments in Kazakhstan.

The meeting was chaired by Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, with Azerbaijan's Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov Kazakhstan’s Mukhtar Tileuberdi, Kyrgyzstan’s Ruslan Kazakbaev, Abdulaziz Kamilov of Uzbekistan, and Peter Szijjarto of Hungary in attendance.

The Meeting started with observation of a minute of silence to commemorate memories of those who lost their lives during the incidents in KazakhstanMukhtar Tileuberdi, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan presented his assessment concerning the recent developments and current situation in Kazakhstan.

The Ministers and the Secretary General delivered their Statements underlining the importance of the peace and stability in Kazakhstan and supported the counter-terrorist operations of the Government of Kazakhstan against those who aimed to undermine the Constitutional order of the Republic of Kazakhstan. 

Following the extensive exchange of views on the subject matter, the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of Turkic States has adopted a joint statement on the situation in Kazakhstan.

Kazakhstan protests began in the oil town of Zhanaozen but have quickly spread to other cities in the country, including the largest city, Almaty.

In response, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev declared a state of emergency in the Mangystau Region and Almaty, effective from 5 January 2022. The Mamin Cabinet resigned the same day. The state of emergency was shortly extended to the whole country.

In response to Tokayev's request, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) – a military alliance of Russia and its allied states that includes Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan itself – agreed to deploy troops in Kazakhstan. The aim was declared to be peacekeeping. The local police reported that “dozens of attackers were liquidated”, while former President Nazarbayev was removed as the Chairman of the Security Council of Kazakhstan.

As a concession, President Tokayev said that the vehicle fuel price caps of 50 tenge per litre had been restored for 6 months. On Friday, he said in a statement, “Constitutional order has largely been restored in all regions of the country.”

He also announced that he had ordered troops to use deadly force against protesters, authorizing instructions to “shoot to kill” without warning at anyone demonstrating, calling protesters “bandits and terrorists” and saying that the use of force would continue to “destroy the protests”.

On Monday, the government declared a day of mourning for the dozens of victims of the protests. Tokayev said on Tuesday that order had been restored in Kazakhstan and the protests were over. He also announced that the CSTO troops would begin withdrawing from the country on 13 January, and would be fully withdrawn in the next 10 days. He nominated a new prime minister, Alihan Smaiylov.

According to Interior Ministry, 164 people have been killed and over 9,900 have been arrested as part of the protests. (ILKHA)