Moscow-led forces in Kazakhstan for ‘limited’ time: Putin

Gulf Today Report

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday that a Moscow-led military detachment deployed to counter unrest in Kazakhstan would remain in the Central Asian country for only a "limited" period.

"A contingent of CSTO peacekeeping forces has been sent to Kazakhstan — and I want to emphasise this — for a limited time period," Putin said during a during a meeting of leaders from ex-Soviet countries, referring to a military pact among their nations.

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Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said on Monday that his country had weathered an attempted coup d'etat coordinated by what he called "a single centre" after the most violent unrest since the Soviet collapse.

Kazakhstan's President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev speaks during his televised statement recently. File/AP

In a speech to an online meeting of the Russian-led CSTO military alliance by video link, Tokayev said that order had now been restored in Kazakhstan, but that the hunt for "terrorists" was ongoing.

"Under the guise of spontaneous protests, a wave of unrest broke out... It became clear that the main goal was to undermine the constitutional order and to seize power. We are talking about an attempted coup d'etat," he said.

Putin told an online meeting of the leaders of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation by video link that the deployment of CSTO troops had prevented armed groups from undermining the basis of power in Kazakhstan.

"Of course, we understand the events in Kazakhstan are not the first and far from the last attempt to interfere in the internal affairs of our states from the outside," Putin said.