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March 29
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YEREVAN. – The military risks are not taken into account in the case of the Amulsar gold mine. Karen Vardanyan, Director of the Union of Information Technology Enterprises (UITE) of Armenia, noted about this to Armenian News-NEWS.am.

“Amulsar is not that far from the Azerbaijani [military] positions—both from the Nakhchivan side and from the other side [mainland Azerbaijan],” he said. “Air sabotage, or a local sabotage in the direction of Amulsar can lead to what we are protecting [ourselves] from; that is, the pollution of [Armenia’s] waters.”

He stressed that the representatives of Armenia had put this matter also before the experts of ELARD consulting firm.

In Vardanyan’s words, just as the nuclear plant of Armenia is under special aerial protection, work must be done in this regard, too.

The American-British Lydian Armenia company began construction of the Amulsar gold mine in 2016, announcing it will invest more than $400 million in this project.

Environmentalists, however, have kept the roads to Amulsar closed for a long time. They oppose Amulsar’s operation, and argue that the exploitation of this gold mine will have a disastrous impact on the environment.

In 2019, the Armenian government petitioned to the ELARD consulting firm of Lebanon for an expert conclusion on Amulsar. The government announced that it will make a final decision on Amulsar’s operation only after receiving this conclusion.

Subsequently, the ELARD expert conclusion stated that environmental risks will be manageable if proper monitoring is carried out at Amulsar.

But following a recent videoconference with ELARD experts, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan wrote on Facebook that several new circumstances had emerged during this videoconference, and which need to be investigated and assessed.

The Ministry of Environment has to decide by Wednesday whether the Amulsar gold mine project needs to undergo a new Environmental Impact Assessment.

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