EcoLur
Armenian-Russian “AT-Metals” mining company addressed a letter to EcoLur in reply to the article published on EcoLur’s website, www.ecolur.org, entitled, “Criminal Case Initiated Based on Verdict of Public Environmental Court on Forests”. The letter particularly says,
Armenian-Russian “AT-Metals” mining company was established in 2012 and its main aim is to continue the works on geological explorations within the frames of the license issued in 2007 (№ԵՀԹՎ-29/40) and the further development of Meghrasar mine: within the frames of the developed technological strategy serious funds had been invested, a large number of experiments and technological experiments of different scales had been conducted, an experimental plant had been constructed and currently we are 90% ready to launch the operation of the plant.
At the same, in 2009 the Armenian Government adopted a resolution on establishing Arevik National Park in the territories of Meghri and Qajaran communities, and in 2010 the mapping of the borders of the park was launched. It is unclear what the specialists dealing with the mapping of park borders were guided by, but a part of the projected territory of Arevik Park “overlapped” with the territory of the currently existing license (№ ԵՀԹՎ-29/40), which is illegal. Besides that, it was impossible not to notice in the course of border mapping that exploration works had already been carried out in this territory: through cuts had been carried out, there were tails.
The governmental resolution №731-Н dated on 02.07.2015 directly says that the territory of ՇԱԹ-29/514 license is not included in the borders of Arevik National Park, and, correspondingly, the administration of AT-Metals was completely sure that the cadastre committee would eliminate all the mismatches.
Nevertheless, in the course of long period of time, we’ve heard almost the same from the governmental bodies (reading the same correspondence) – the borders of Arevik National Park are not still approved, that’s why we ask you to wait a bit.
ü There is legally issued license and it’s illegal to change the borders of this territory,
ü There is RA Law on the protection of foreign investments,
ü There is an agreement with the Russian Federation on the guarantees of integrity of investments.
July 09, 2019 at 18:06