Kazakhstan President to establish fund created out of assets seized from corrupt officials

Amid deteriorating conditions in Kazakhstan, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev is mulling to establish a new fund that will be sanctioned from the amount recovered from the corrupt officials. Citing Euractiv reports, Sputnik said that the information was confirmed later by Foreign Minister Mukhtar Tleuberdi during a press conference on Tuesday. It is worth mentioning earlier that this week, the President had fired the nephew of former Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Samat Abish, from the post of Deputy Chairman of the National Security Council. Notably, the incumbent president has dismissed several leaders and officials who are allegedly involved in corruption. According to local media reports, Tokayev is planning to reshuffle the Cabinet which was formed during Nazarbayev's rule.

The media report further said that the action on the corrupt officials is significant for the ruling government amid a soaring hike in gas prices. Kazakhstan is experiencing the worst street protests nearly after three decades amid soaring fuel prices in the country. On January 2, the demonstrations began in the country’s west but spread to Almaty and the capital Nur-Sultan within two days. As the protest intensified in Kazakhstan earlier last week, the president declared a nationwide state of emergency, effective until January 19, and invited the peacekeeping forces of the Collective Security Treaty Organization to help bring the situation under control.

At least 225 killed, 12,000 protestors arrested in Kazakh violence

Meanwhile, during the presser on Wednesday, Kazakh President Tokayev announced that the mission has been completed and added that the peacekeeping forces were ousted the terrorists from Almaty. Later, the country's top leader thanked the forces for stabilising the situation. According to the latest development, the Kazakh authorities said they detained 1,678 more people in the past 24 hours over their alleged participation in the violent unrest. With this, the total number of arrests went to about 12,000, according to AP. As of now, at least 225 people died and more than 4,500 were injured during the violent demonstrations. The State news channel Khabar-24 informed a total of 353 law enforcement officers were injured in the deadly clash. 

(With inputs from AP)