Sir, – Russian president Vladimir Putin’s swift sending of his paratroopers to prop up the Kazakh government will save the blushes of those western governments heavily invested in its survival. The US State Department continues to call Kazakhstan’s discredited government “a valued partner”, even as the situation spirals out of control.
Unfortunately, Ireland also has a record of cosying up to the Kazakh government. In 2018, Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney met Kazakhstan’s foreign minister to discuss “the development of bilateral relations and other matters of national and common interest”. This despite Kazakhstan being categorised by the Economist’s Democracy Index as an “authoritarian regime”.
Pity the poor people of Kazakhstan. – Yours, etc,
DOMINIC CARROLL,
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Ardfield,
Co Cork.