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Kazakh president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has agreed to revive the previous identify of the nation’s capital simply three years after he renamed it in honour of his predecessor, his spokesperson mentioned.
Tokayev’s spokesman, Ruslan Zheliban, mentioned the president agreed to the identify change after an initiative by a bunch of MPs.
Certainly one of Tokayev’s first strikes upon taking workplace in 2019 after president Nursultan Nazarbayev stepped down was to name for Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana, to be dubbed Nur-Sultan as an alternative.
Nazarbayev, who led the nation for 3 many years underneath the Soviet Union and after it gained independence in 1991, relocated the capital from Almaty to Astana in 1997. The transfer was broadly questioned due to town’s relative isolation within the northern steppes and notoriously frigid winters during which temperatures plunge as little as -51C (-60F).
He made town right into a showplace of gaudy structure, together with an statement tower the place guests can place their palms in a print of Nazarbayev’s.
After he stepped down, Nazarbayev retained monumental affect as head of the county’s ruling social gathering and safety council. However Tokayev eliminated him from these posts after lethal unrest in January that hinged partly on dissatisfaction with the facility that Nazarbayev nonetheless wielded.
In June, Kazakhs overwhelmingly voted for constitutional modifications in a referendum after unrest ended Nazarbayev’s three-decade grip on central Asia’s richest nation.
The January bloodshed, which grew out of peaceable protests over a spike in automobile gasoline costs, left greater than 230 individuals useless and prompted authorities to name in troops from a Russia-led safety bloc.
Related Press and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report
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