Kazakhstan asks CSTO for help to end unrest

Nur-Sultan, Jan 5 (EFE) .- Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev on Wednesday requested help from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a military alliance that brings together six former Soviet republics, including Russia, to put an end to massive riots in his country that he described as a “terrorist threat.”

“I have today addressed the CSTO member countries with the request that they help Kazakhstan to defeat this terrorist threat,” declared the Kazakh leader in a message to the nation broadcast by the state channel Jabar 24.

The president said that “the terrorist gangs” that have carried out the riots on Wednesday in several Kazakh cities, and particularly in Almaty, where the protesters seized several government buildings, including the mayor’s office, the president’s residence and the airport, were well prepared.

“We should and we must view this attack against Kazakhstan as an act of aggression,” he said, noting that it is a situation that merits the request for help from the alliance.

Tokayev pointed out that “terrorist gangs have taken over important infrastructural facilities, in particular the Almaty airport, with five planes, including foreign planes.”

“Almaty was subjected to attack, destruction and vandalism,” he added in his third public address in the past two days.

The president pointed out that he heads the anti-terrorist staff created to alleviate the situation and denounced that the protesters have raided premises where firearms were stored.