The Ministry of Environment takes note of the open letter
\nsent by a number of alleged “civil society organizations” operating in the
\nRepublic of Azerbaijan.<\/p>\n
The claims made in the open letter are entirely without
\nfoundation and are unworthy of a response. The Ministry of Environment
\nnonetheless wishes to briefly make the following points:<\/p>\n
1. With respect to the alleged pollution of water resources
\n(mentioned in the preface of the open letter and its points 1-3), the Ministry
\nnotes that there are water quality monitoring points in all transboundary
\nsections of rivers in Armenia, where the monitoring of all water quality
\nparameters, including heavy metals, is carried out at monthly intervals.
\nAccording to the law, mining enterprises monitor water quality and atmospheric
\nair and soil pollution, and the results are submitted to the Ministry in the
\nform of quarterly and annual reports, which are then published. At the same
\ntime, Armenia is the only member country of the “Extractive Industries
\nTransparency Initiative” in the Caucasus region, which proves the
\nimportance Armenia accords to open and accountable management of natural
\nresources.<\/p>\n
2. In response to point 4 of the open letter, the Ministry
\nobserves that the ”Sotk” gold mine was lawfully assigned to the Armenian
\nSoviet Socialist Republic in 1964, and so it now belongs to the Republic of
\nArmenia on the basis of succession. The open letter is simply wrong that the
\nEuropean Court of Human Rights has ruled that Armenia has violated “rights to
\necological balance”; no such decision exists.<\/p>\n
3. Point 5 of the open letter misrepresents the judgments of
\nthe European Court of Human Rights of 14 February 2019. In those judgments, the
\nCourt accepted that the implementation of the Teghout copper‑molybdenum deposit
\nexploitation project was in the public interest. It granted compensation to
\nArmenian nationals only because their properties had been expropriated for this
\nproject. Contrary to what the open letter states, the Court did not consider
\nthe mining activities in question to be illegal.<\/p>\n
4. The mine with the name mentioned in point 6 of the letter
\nis neither located in nor operated by the Republic of Armenia.<\/p>\n
5. As for the Akhtala Ore Processing Combine mentioned in
\npoint 7 of the letter, it is being operated with a new technology, which does
\nnot provide for the use of tailings.<\/p>\n
6. The factory with the name mentioned in point 8 of the
\nopen letter is neither located in nor operated by the Republic of Armenia.
<\/p><\/p>\n
<\/p>7. What is mentioned in point 9 of the open letter does not
\ncorrespond to reality, because there is no factory engaged in the production of
\ncopper, zinc and lead in the Kotayk region of the Republic of Armenia.<\/p>\n
8. Point 10 of the open letter is also not true, because
\nthere is no copper smelter in the Gegharkunik region of the Republic of
\nArmenia.<\/p>\n
9. As for the Eraskh factory, it fully complies with
\ninternational environmental standards.<\/p>\n
10. As for the Amulsar mine, it has not yet entered the
\noperational phase, so there is no question of any contamination. And when it
\nbegins operation, the highest international benchmark of environmental risk
\nmanagement will be followed, and its implementation will be strictly monitored,
\nincluding by international organizations.<\/p>\n\n
11. It should be noted that the water leaving the borders of
\nArmenia corresponds to international norms. This was proven years ago, when the
\nCenter for Ecological-Noosphere Studies National Academy of Sciences, with the
\nsupport of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), conducted studies on
\n40 indicators at border points for 6 years, applying the same methodology
\nadopted jointly with neighboring countries within the framework of the
\nproject,” reads the response of the ministry.
<\/p><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Ministry of Environment takes note of the open letter sent by a number of alleged “civil society organizations” operating in the Republic of Azerbaijan. The claims made in the open letter are entirely without foundation and are unworthy of a response. The Ministry of Environment nonetheless wishes to briefly make the following points: 1. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19998,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,35,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-politics","category-society"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}