On 2 July, the tensions between civil activists and the police (Caucasus Watch reported) in the resort town of Jermuk in Armenia ended with the withdrawal of the armed security guards from the territory of the mine, reported the Caucasian Knot.
Activist Shirak Bunityan told the reporters that early in the morning of 30 June, several dozen armed people in camouflage and balaclavas entered the Amulsar field. "It turned out that Lydian Armenia had [ended] the contract with the previous security agency, and these were the employees of the new agency. Moreover, they did not have any identification marks on their form - neither the name of the agency, nor the name and surname, as required by law. The authorities refused to say the name of the new security service. Only on the second day after we pointed out this violation, the guards pasted their chevrons,” he said
He further elaborated that the local residents agreed with the former security service not to create problems for each other, but the new security service planned to set up camp right by the mine. About 250 residents of the resort area came out to protest against the work of the new security company. After two days of negotiations it was agreed that the leadership of the new security service would remove some of their people from the territory of the Amulsarskoye field, and the rest would serve without weapons.
Another activist Teimine Enokyan did not rule out that the actions of the new security agency could be coordinated with the Armenian authorities. “A court in Ontario (Canada) refused Lydian International, whose subsidiary is Lydian Armenia, to defend it, declaring it bankrupt, and all the property was transferred to the companies that invested in the project. We have not fully studied the 200-page court decision and have not yet figured out what rights these companies have,” she told the Caucasian Knot correspondent.
On 20 August 2019, Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan declared his intention to allow the Anglo-American company Lydian to restart the gold mining project after the Lebanese company ELARD published their report stating that underground water at Amulsar would not have physical “connections” with mineral water sources in Jermuk or rivers and canals flowing into Sevan. Pashinyan’s decision was still not backed by the residents of Jermuk, environmentalists and some opposition lawmakers, sparking protests in the village of Jermuk (Caucasus Watch reported). On 4 September, the Armenian Ministry of Environment submitted the report on the environmental impact of the Amulsar gold mine project. According to Vladimir Karapetyan, the Prime Minister of Armenia’s spokesperson, the Ministry of Environment concluded that a new environmental impact assessment is needed in order to clarify if the gold mine could be exploited (Caucasus Watch reported). The topic remained silent in Armenia until these protests.
