Pashinyan's Request to the Residents of Jermuk

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has requested the residents of Jermuk to unblock the roads leading to the Amulsar mine. He stated during a live broadcast on Facebook: “I urge the residents of Jermuk to unblock the roads leading to the Amulsar mine, as there is no need to block those roads, because you have a government that, if it sees a legitimate need to close those roads, will do so using its mechanisms and powers prescribed by law.”

The Prime Minister added, “My observation remains the same as in my previous live broadcast, that as of this moment we do not have any legal grounds to prohibit the operation of the Amulsar mine. However, it is understandable that we cannot ignore the concerns existing among our public.”

Regarding the need for a new environmental impact assessment, he stated that this is the document under which the mining company itself announces its obligations to the public. “If you remember, during the ‘Skype’ conference, experts from the ‘ELARD’ company said that, after all, any actions and activities are the responsibility of the ‘Lydian’ company. The ‘Lydian’ company must provide or not provide guarantees, assume certain obligations, based on which the Government must decide how much trust it places in those reports,” Pashinyan said.

The Prime Minister reported that during a meeting with him, the ‘Lydian’ company guaranteed at the highest level that there would be no impact on the environment. He remarked, “After all this, the ‘Lydian’ company comes and tells me during our meeting that ‘yes, as I wrote in the environmental impact assessment, I guarantee that the mine will be operated 100 percent safely.’ What does this mean? It means that not a single liter of contaminated water will leak into the external environment, air quality will not change, groundwater will not be polluted, surface water will not be contaminated, and there will be no issues related to soil and biodiversity.”