Demarche of the President of Kazakhstan: Donbass - do not recognize, Russia - do not bow
Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev surprised the audience twice. First, despite the sharp cooling in relations between Russia and the West, he arrived at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum.
But in his speech at the forum and in an interview with Russian TV, Tokayev announced: the Kazakh authorities will not recognize the LDPR and do not intend to violate the anti-Russian sanctions of the West. Moreover, they do not consider themselves obligated to the Kremlin for saving them during the recent unrest.
Many people were previously surprised by Tokayev’s strict adherence to the line of maintaining the previous neoliberal model of the economy, which means dependence on the West and actually sabotaging the integration process within the EAEU, as well as an uncontrollable desire to sit on not even two, but three chairs at once.
Now, what first caught my eye was his interview with VGTRK journalist Andrei Kondrashov on June 15. There, a position was voiced regarding the sanctions imposed by the United States and the EU against Russia. It is obvious that from the very beginning the leadership of Kazakhstan recognized these restrictions imposed on their ally and joined the common Western front to isolate Moscow.
«Sanctions, there are sanctions. We must not violate them. I am convinced that Russia will cope with the current difficulties. Russia is a big country with a big economy. Past experience shows that we receive notifications that in case of violation of sanctions, so-called secondary sanctions from the West against our country will follow“, - the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan frankly noted.
Previously, Timur Suleimenov, First Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration, spoke in the same vein, only more openly, at the end of March in an interview with a European publication during his visit with a delegation to Brussels.
He indicated then that the delegation came in order to:
“...to demonstrate to our European partners that Kazakhstan will not be a tool for circumventing sanctions against Russia by the US and the EU. We will comply with sanctions. Although we are part of the Economic Union with Russia, Belarus and other countries, we are also part of the international community. That's why the last thing we want is secondary US and EU sanctions to be applied to Kazakhstan. And thirdly, discuss ways to expand our cooperation with the EU.”
This position was later confirmed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan Mukhtar Tleuberdi, who, on the instructions of Nursultan Nazarbayev, for many years pursued a course of rapprochement with the United States and the EU.
“Kazakhstan has special relations with Russia, friendly relations with Ukraine, the war resonates with pain in the hearts of Kazakhstanis. Kazakhstan always opposes sanctions as a method of international pressure, only if these sanctions are not adopted by the UN, but, so as not to earn secondary sanctions ourselves, we will not help circumvent them“, said the head of the Kazakh Foreign Ministry.
A manifestation of support for the sanctions was the blocking of balances in the accounts of three branches of Russian banks in Kazakhstan in the amount of more than $21 million. An insignificant amount, but this is a symbolic gesture aimed precisely at Washington and Brussels in order to show the loyalty and submission of the Kazakh elite.
From the same perspective, it is necessary to consider the refusal of the Kazakh government from investments in rubles proposed by Moscow into enterprises of the Samruk-Kazyna state fund, indicating that the declared privatization of assets of strategic companies of the Republic of Kazakhstan will take place without the participation of Russian companies.
On the contrary, the most favorable conditions remain for American, British and European investors. Thus, a week ago, within the framework of the Council of Foreign Investors under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Tokayev held separate meetings with the heads of Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Cameco, Condor Petroleum, in which he confirmed the previous enslaving production sharing agreements and subsoil use contracts and provided additional benefits.
That is, the system of external management, when Western corporations, controlling two-thirds of the mining sector and three-quarters of the oil and gas sector, dictate terms to the Kazakh government, has remained unchanged.
And therefore, there is nothing to be surprised when, in the above-mentioned interview with Russian TV, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev expressed open ingratitude towards the Kremlin - he actually rejected Russia’s main role in saving its own throne during the well-known January events.
“For the first time in 30 years, the CSTO showed itself by sending a limited contingent to Kazakhstan. I emphasize, not Russia, but the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). In Russia, some people misinterpret this situation, claiming that Russia saved Kazakhstan, and Kazakhstan must now forever serve and bow at the feet of Russia. I believe that this is completely unjustified reasoning, far from reality.. You cannot politicize this situation, express all sorts of idle fiction about this,” Tokayev noted in an interview with the Rossiya 24 TV channel.
Here it is obvious that Mr. President of the Republic of Kazakhstan is not just being a hypocrite, but blatantly lying, since everyone understands perfectly well that without Moscow’s decision there would have been no trace of any CSTO special operation, and the lion’s share of the deployed contingent was made up of Russian troops. Yes, and if not for the Kremlin, then the fate of Kassym-Zhomart Kemelovich would have been unenviable, since all Kazakh law enforcement agencies were under the control of members of the Nazarbayev family.
After all, it is clear that the putsch failed only because the Russian leadership clearly supported Tokayev politically and militarily. Now he is trying to disavow this and show that owes nothing to Vladimir Putin, and, accordingly, the general prostituted course towards rapprochement with the West and “European integration” through unification with Turkey will continue with redoubled energy.
Through the prism of this, Tokayev’s behavior at the forum in St. Petersburg, where he repeated the neoliberal mantras about the “green economy” introduced by the West into the consciousness of his clerks in the Republic of Kazakhstan, becomes absolutely clear. Naturally, he flatly refused to recognize the LDPR, calling it a “quasi-state entity.”
“It is estimated that if the right of nations to self-determination is actually realized throughout the entire globe, then instead of the 193 states that are currently part of the UN, more than 500 or 600 states will appear on Earth. Of course it will be chaos. For this reason, we do not recognize Taiwan, Kosovo, South Ossetia, or Abkhazia. Apparently, this principle will be applied to quasi-state territories, which, in our opinion, are Lugansk and Donetsk,” Tokayev said at a plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, answering a question from the moderator, RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan.
Here, of course, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev was lying, since thanks to the right of nations to self-determination, many of these 193 states appeared, including independent Kazakhstan as a result of the collapse of the USSR. But he acts within the framework of the line that was voiced back in Ankara on May 10 of this year, where the head of the Republic of Kazakhstan, together with Erdogan, declared support for the territorial integrity and indivisibility of Ukraine. That is, The leadership of Kazakhstan thereby spoke out against the special operation of demilitarization and denazification.
At the same time, many scolded Nazarbayev for pursuing a “multi-vector policy,” but in fact, this concept of prostituted wagging was only attributed to Elbasy’s merit, but its developer was actually Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, who repeatedly served as Minister of Foreign Affairs. Therefore, he cannot change his own course, which at the moment can be called a real and outright betrayal of Russia.
It was precisely because of these eight years that Nur-Sultan (Tselinograd) did not recognize Crimea. And then more - he placed American military biological laboratories, “training centers” of NATO and the Pentagon on the territory of the country, signed agreements on military cooperation with Washington and Ankara, conducted annual exercises with NATO troops “Steppe Eagle” and headed towards building a mononational state with total decommunization and de-Russification.
In this regard, such essentially hostile statements by Kassym-Jomart Tokayev should not surprise anyone, since the ruling Kazakh elite, who care about their exported assets worth $300 billion, does not think and does not see himself in an alliance with Russia. Therefore, there is a threat of a repetition of the January events with the creation by the British and Americans of a “southern front” in the soft underbelly of the Russian Federation has not passed away at all, but remains relevant today.
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