Kazakhstan’s president appealed to a Russian-led military alliance for help on Wednesday after vowing to act with force to curb protests that have swept the resource-rich central Asian nation in the most significant challenge for years to the country’s autocratic rule.

A state of emergency was declared nationwide after anger at rising fuel prices escalated into protests in several cities, with major buildings set alight and demonstrators overrunning an airport in former capital Almaty.

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev accepted the resignation of the government and said he was assuming control of the country’s security council, giving him more powers to direct security forces or crackdown on protests if he saw fit.

It leaves questions over the role of former longtime president Nursultan Nazarbayev, who stepped down in 2019 after three decades as the country’s leader but had retained control of the security council and held significant sway as a “leader of the nation” figure.

Late on Wednesday, Tokayev said he had made an appeal for help to the

Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Russian-led military alliance that also includes Belarus, Armenia and two of Kazakhstan’s neighbors. He said assistance was needed to fight armed and organized bands of terrorists that had been trained abroad.

Tokayev’s announcement, made after a phone call with his counterparts in

Moscow and Minsk, could open the way to the entry of foreign troops into Kazakhstan to assist the government in putting down the protest. The alliance’s treaty promises assistance to member states whose security or stability is threatened.

Speaking earlier in the day, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said

Kazakhstan was able to handle the situation on its own and had not requested outside help. He also warned against “outside interference”.

Kazakhstan is a major oil producer and a member of the Opec+ group of countries. Brent crude prices rose on Wednesday, in part on worries that the protests could disrupt oil supplies.

The country’s is also significant for global energy markets because of its production of uranium for nuclear power plants. Last year the country