The Collective Security Treaty Organization has agreed to send a joint peacekeeping force to help contain violent unrest gripping Kazakhstan that has killed at least 12 policemen. President Joe Biden’s spokeswoman has denied that the US government is behind the violent protests that have rocked Kazakhstan this week, claiming that unnamed “Russians” have falsely accused Washington of triggering the tumult.
A peacekeeping force will be deployed for a ‘limited’ period of time to stabilize the situation in Kazakhstan, the CSTO Collective Security Council Chairman and Prime Minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan, has announced.
“In response to the appeal by [President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev] and considering a threat to national security and sovereignty of Kazakhstan, caused, among other things, by outside interference, the CSTO Collective Security Council decided to send the Collective Peacekeeping Forces to the Republic of Kazakhstan in accordance with Article 4 of the Collective Security Treaty,” Pashinyan said in a statement on Facebook.
The decision comes just hours after the Kazakh president asked allies for help amid violent unrest gripping the nation, claiming that “terrorists” were overrunning strategic facilities across the country.
The president slammed the violent protesters who have overrun government buildings and other facilities in several cities across the country. Moreover, he said an “intense firefight” between an airborne military unit and the “terrorists” had been going on outside the country’s largest city, Almaty, at the time of his address. These highly organized “terrorists” had been trained abroad, Tokayev alleged.
These terrorist gangs are international, have undergone serious training abroad, and their attack on Kazakhstan can and should be viewed as an act of aggression.
The White House is monitoring the protests in Kazakhstan and supports “calls for calm, for protesters to express themselves peacefully and for authorities to exercise restraint,” Jen Psaki told reporters on Wednesday.
⚡️Kazakh President sends request for foreign troops to collective security bloc – involving six former Soviet countries including Russia – to help stem the riots – reports pic.twitter.com/h8Nh1oyieR
— RT (@RT_com) January 5, 2022
The pogroms of shops and banks continued throughout the night in Almaty. Videos from looting sites continue to appear on the web. Businessmen and volunteers tried to resist the looters on their own, gathering in squads. The thugs stormed retail outlets, including using bulldozers.