The inclusion in 2019 of Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in the list of the Ukrainian website Mirotvorets ("Peacemaker"), which publishes personal data of people whom the creators of the portal consider enemies of the country, does not reflect Kiev's official position, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan Mukhtar Tleuberdi told reporters on Thursday.
"Let's proceed from what the Mirotvorets is. As stated on its website, it is a non-governmental organization that was created by reporters, experts, and so on. Since it is a non-governmental [structure], it certainly does not reflect the official position [of the Ukrainian authorities]," he said.
According to him, the website posted a link to the president's statement. "Therefore, any particular reaction, I think, is not necessary. The link to our president's statement was posted in 2019. You as journalists yourselves should look at why there is a reaction now, why there was not any in 2019. Now - in the era of information wars - you need to look at the relevance of this information, in whose interests it is raised," the minister pointed out.
He also noted that this publication does not discredit the president at all. "It is not a state [source]. There are no threats, otherwise it would be the subject of discussions, including those of the special services. I do not see anything purely political in the fact that the Mirotvorets website makes a reference to the president's statement," added the head of the foreign ministry.
The reason for Tokayev's inclusion in the Mirotvorets list on its website states "public denial of Russian aggression against Ukraine," as well as "denial of the Russian attack on Ukraine in 2014 and the seizure of its territories." In early December 2019, in an interview with Deutsche Welle, the president of Kazakhstan said that the republic did not consider the reunification of Crimea with Russia an annexation. When asked whether the government of Kazakhstan was frightened by the events in Ukraine, namely the annexation of Crimea, he replied that "annexation is too heavy a word to apply to Crimea."
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Russian Foreign Ministry
Based on materials from TASS