Turkish FM emphasizes Turkey’s support to Kazakhstan

ANKARA

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu stressed the Turkic countries for unity to support Kazakhstan during the recent turmoil in the Central Asian country, emphasizing that Turkey stands strong in supporting it.

“As the family of the Turkic state, we stand by our Kazakh brothers and are in solidarity with them in this difficult time,” Çavuşoğlu said, addressing the online extraordinary meeting of the foreign ministers of the member and observer states of the Organization of Turkic States (OTS) aimed to evaluate the developments in Kazakhstan.

Stating that Ankara follows the developments in Kazakhstan with concern, he noted that the Turkic world is a big family and that they are connected like the organs of a body.

The Turkic nations will stand by Kazakhstan with all their resources and provide full support, Çavuşoğlu said.

“As a nation, we are very saddened by the developments in Kazakhstan, just as the whole body suffers when a part of it hurts. We wish God’s mercy on those who lost their lives and a speedy recovery to the injured,” he said.

Emphasizing Ankara is pleased that the situation has been brought under control, Çavuşoğlu said that they are happy with the appointment of a new prime minister in Kazakhstan and that they will continue to work in cooperation with him.

The peace and stability in Kazakhstan are important for global peace as well as for the region and the organization, Çavuşoğlu said, adding that the country has the ability, experience and state tradition to overcome this crisis.

“As Turkey, we have been in contact with Kazakh authorities from the very beginning. Our public followed the developments closely, and as a nation we were worried. From now on, whatever comes our way, we stand by Kazakhstan with all our means, and we are ready to mobilize all our means,” he stated.

The OTS includes Turkey, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, as well as Turkmenistan and Hungary, as partners.

The unrest began in the country’s far west as protests against a sharp rise in prices for liquefied petroleum gas that is widely used as a vehicle fuel spread to the country’s largest city, Almaty, where demonstrators seized and burned down government buildings. The government has declared a state of emergency and invited peacekeepers from the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a Russia-led military alliance of six former Soviet states.

Authorities say security forces killed 26 demonstrators in this week’s unrest and that 18 law-enforcement officers died. More than 4,400 people have been arrested, Kazakhstan’s Interior Ministry said Saturday.

A Russian-led military bloc would start pulling its troops from Kazakhstan in two days’ time after fulfilling its main mission of stabilizing the country, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said on Tuesday.

Tokayev nominated Alikhan Smailov for prime minister on Tuesday, and the lower house of parliament swiftly voted in favor of him.