Police officers near the Akorda Palace of the President of Kazakhstan in Nur-Sultan. File photoNUR-SULTAN, June 5The events of last January in Kazakhstan are a terrorist attack on the state system, said President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Zhomart Tokayev. «We insist that it was a terrorist attack aimed at undermining the state system,» the president said during a conversation with reporters after his participation in voting on amendments to the constitution. He noted that «the operation itself against the state was clearly planned, it was led by well-trained professionals.» The President stressed that such events would not be repeated in Kazakhstan, appropriate conclusions were drawn. There will be no January in our country, and the guarantee of this, by the way, is today's referendum. We have learned the appropriate lessons,» the head of state said. >The referendum is just the beginning of a lot of work, Tokayev said Answering a journalist's question about whether the list of those killed in those events would be published, Tokayev confirmed that the list would be presented to the public. «There are a lot of dead who represented the terrorist side. <… > But there are also people who were not involved in these organized attacks against our state. In this regard, condolences,» the president said. On Sunday, June 5, Kazakhstanis vote at the republican referendum on the issue of amending the country's constitution, aimed at reducing presidential powers, strengthening other branches of government and increasing the role of citizens in the process of governing the state. Mass protests in Kazakhstan began in the early days of 2022 — residents of the cities of Zhanaozen and Aktau in the west of the country opposed the doubling of prices for liquefied gas. Later, the protests spread to other cities, including Alma-Ata, the old capital and the largest city of the republic: looting began there, militants attacked state institutions, took away weapons, and seized the airport. In response, the authorities declared a state of emergency throughout the country until January 19 and launched a counter-terrorism operation. According to the country's Prosecutor General's Office, 230 people, including 19 security officials, died as a result of the riots.
