Nur Sultan, Jan 11 (Asia Free Press): The Parliament of Kazakhstan on Tuesday unanimously approved Alikhan Smailov as the new Prime Minister of the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Smailov was nominated by President Kassym-Jomart Tokaev before the approval of the Kazakh parliament, according to AKI Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alikhan Smailov has been performing the PM’s duties since January 5, after the government resigned following protest actions in western Kazakhstan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Kazakhstan, the protests broke out on January 2, when drivers in the city of Zhanaozen in the country’s oil-rich Mangystau region staged demonstrations against huge price hikes for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), which later spread to the city of Aktau.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The protests, which started in Atyrau, Aktobe and Oral, where the country’s petroleum and natural gas reserves are located, spread to other corners of Kazakhstan and turned into public demonstrations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the protests spread across the country, Kazakh President Tokayev declared a state of emergency in Almaty and the Mangystau region to maintain public security from Jan. 5\u201319. He also imposed a curfew in Almaty, the country’s former capital, where thousands of people had taken to the streets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A few days ago, a Russian-led security alliance like the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) deployed peacekeeping forces in the Central Asian country to help normalise the tense situation following days of violent protests.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nur Sultan, Jan 11 (Asia Free Press): The Parliament of Kazakhstan on Tuesday unanimously approved Alikhan Smailov as the new Prime Minister of the country. Smailov was nominated by President Kassym-Jomart Tokaev before the approval of the Kazakh parliament, according to AKI Press. Alikhan Smailov has been performing the PM’s duties since January 5, after […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":3369,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3368","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3368"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}