The Kazakh government has resigned after violent protests over fuel prices

ALMATY (Reuters) – Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev approved the government’s resignation on Wednesday, his office said after violent protests over rising fuel prices rocked an oil-rich Central Asian country.

The police used to get the crying gases and stunning grenades in the night after the Main Seafness of Almaty, the largest Soviet Republic, and the clashes were extended in the surrounding areas.

The protests shook the image of the former Soviet republic as a politically stable and tightly controlled nation, which has used hundreds of billions of dollars to attract foreign investment to its oil and metal industries in the three decades of independence.

Tokayev declared a state of emergency in Almaty and the oil-producing province of Mangistau in early western Wednesday, and said there were domestic and foreign provocateurs behind the violence.

Protests began on Sunday in Mangistau province, a day earlier after raising the price limits for liquefied petroleum gas, a well-known fuel for cars, after which its price doubled.

Speaking to cabinet members on Wednesday, Tokayev ordered them and provincial governors to reinstate LPG price controls and extend them to gasoline, diesel and other “socially important” consumer goods.

He also ordered the government to develop a personal bankruptcy law and freeze utility prices and subsidize rents for poor families.

He said the situation was improving after a state of emergency was declared in the towns and villages affected by the protests, which resulted in cuts and movement restrictions.