Putin Maintains 'Warm Relations' With Both Tokayev, Nazarbayev - Peskov

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 19th January, 2022) Russian President Vladimir Putin has "warm relations" with both the acting president of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, and former President Nursultan Nazarbayev, as evident from a recent joint meeting in the Russian city of St. Petersburg, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Nazarbayev's first address after riots in Kazakhstan was published on Twitter by his spokesman Aidos Ukibay. The country's first president, who retained the status of the "nation's leader" after retiring, said that he handed over power to Tokayev in 2019 and since then has been on a "well-deserved rest" in the capital of Kazakhstan.

"This is an exclusively internal affair of Kazakhstan. You know that the president has very warm relations with both the acting president and the first president. These relations are being maintained. They have just recently, just a few weeks ago, talked all together in St. Petersburg. But certainly, the acting head of state is Tokayev, and this is precisely the fundamental point.

And everything else is an internal affair of Kazakhstan," Peskov said, when asked to comment on Nazarbayev's address.

Earlier in January, mass protests swept across Kazakhstan after a twofold increase in gas prices. Despite the government's attempts to quell discontent and promises to bring prices down, protests turned violent and descended into deadly clashes with police in several regions.

Nearly 1,000 people were injured, the United Nations said. According to the Kazakh Prosecutor General's Office, 4,578 people were injured and 225 people, including 19 security officials, were killed.

On January 5, Tokayev dismissed the government. He described the situation in Kazakhstan as undermining the country's integrity and asked the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) to help in overcoming what he called the "terrorist threat." CSTO� peacekeepers were briefly sent to Kazakhstan to normalize the situation. The contingent withdrew last week.