Kazakhstan's president says Russian troops to start leaving this week

Kazakhstan's president says Russian-led troops will start leaving in 2 days.

Russian-led troops sent to help quell protests will begin leaving Kazakhstan in two days now that the government is back in control, the country's president has said.

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in an address to Kazakhstan's parliament Tuesday said the troops, deployed by the Moscow-dominated military alliance, the Collective Security Treaty Organisation at his request last week, would start a phased withdrawal that would finish in no more than 10 days.

"The main mission of the CSTO peacekeeping forces has been successfully completed," Tokayev told lawmakers. He said that the situation was now stable in all regions of Kazakhstan.

The Russian-led alliance sent troops late last week to Kazakhstan as violent protests saw Tokayev's authoritarian government lose control over its biggest city, Almaty. Russia sent the largest contingent, deploying paratroopers units with armored vehicles, backed by several hundred soldiers from the other former Soviet countries in the alliance: Belarus, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Tokayev has said the force numbers around 2,300 troops.