ASTANA (Sputnik) — Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev on Tuesday announced his resignation.

“I have decided to step down from the office of president”, said the septuagenarian leader, who has ruled Kazakhstan since its independence in 1991. He thanked the Kazakh people for giving him the opportunity to become the first president of the independent Kazakhstan. He recalled the difficulty, the country suffered after the collapse of the Soviet Union.