Kazakhstan's decision to withdraw the peacekeeping forces of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) is the republic's prerogative; Russia will not interfere, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday.
"This is entirely the prerogative of the country that has made this request to the CSTO. This is their analysis, and we have no right to interfere with it," the Kremlin spokesman said.
Responding to a question about where Moscow gets data on the possible involvement of foreign groups in the unrest in Kazakhstan, Peskov said: "I do not possess the information that our relevant services have, but certainly there is an exchange of information through the line of special services, including within the CSTO. As part of this exchange, the Russian side receives data from its Kazakh colleagues".
The Kremlin representative stressed that "the most important thing here is not what information the Russian side has, but what information is used by Kazakhstan's colleagues, and the president [of Kazakhstan Kasym-Jomart] Tokayev spoke about this yesterday".
"That should be and is the primary source," Peskov stressed.
The spokesman described as isolated and meaningless the incident when security forces in Kazakhstan detained famous Kyrgyz musician Vikram Ruzakhunov on suspicion of involvement in the Almaty riots, who was subsequently released and sent home. "This doesn't mean anything, an isolated case is no reason to build any trends, especially against the background of such large-scale events that took place a week earlier in Almaty," Peskov said.
Earlier, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said that the withdrawal of the CSTO peacekeeping contingent from the country would begin in two days and would take no more than 10 days.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: official website of the President of the Russian Federation
Based on materials from TASS