“I would like to formalize the common stance of mine and the government regarding the Amulsar issue. We are saying that in this issue we must follow the truth to the end, and the truth itself must bring us to a given decision. And in terms of truths I also attach much importance that the public doesn’t give in to manipulations, including from my highly beloved and respected friends. Because when any citizen takes some device and goes somewhere and says – now I will measure the radiation and it will turn out that some radiation background exists here, or that carnage will now begin in Armenia – I find this to be manipulations. Why am I telling to open the roads leading to the mine, because I find that a government exists in Armenia which will factually close the roads if such necessity would exist, and it will open them if such necessity would exist. I do not accept the viewpoint when they say – doesn’t matter, it is going to be this way, period, there is no other way. If an activist can say such things, the government can’t, because the government is a body whose actions must rely on law, be lawful, stem from the law and the Constitution.
The PM brough the example of Teghut.
“When I was on vacation there was a great deal of talk about the Teghut tailings dam, when I went to work on the first day after the vacation and Cabinet members entered my office they said you gotta make a decision on halting the Teghut mine operations because there is a problem, it is collapsing, the tailings dam will collapse and will result in thousands of fatalities and so on. What did I do? I dispatched relevant inspectorates to a inspection, they came back and guaranteed that the dam will not collapse in the foreseeable future, and in terms of an unforeseeable future a study must take place,” the PM said, adding that the operator has obliged to carry out an international-level study for the long-term. “I was very much interested for the Teghut mine to be opened, because I understood that this mine, when it was left unattended in such condition, was an ecological ...
