On 4 August, the exploration company Lydian Armenia replaced the trailers of local residents who were on duty at the approaches to Mount Amulsar with their own. After that, opponents of the mine's exploitation organized a mass protest action, blocking the road leading to Jermuk. Clashes broke out between security officials and activists, which resulted in the detention of protesters, reported the Caucasian Knot.
The police detained ten people, amongst them was the chairman of Green Future NGO Vahagn Varagyan. During the action, there was also a conflict between the security forces and Lydian Armenia security personnel, as a result of which, according to preliminary data, four security guards of the enterprise were detained.
A day later, Lydian Armenia published an official statement, saying that the company would “continue to fight to restore its legal rights, despite all the forces that are trying to thwart-through illegal actions-the country's largest and most exemplary investment.”
In 2019 Lydian Armenia went to court with a demand to force the police to remove the activists’ trailers from the company’s land. At the same time, the police removed the activists’ trailers to the side of the Gndevaz-Jermuk road. However, this did not suit the company, and it demanded the release of this territory too, following from the police response published on 2 August on the All-Armenian Environmental Front's Facebook page. The document notes that cadastral work was carried out to find the exact location of the trailers. "Thus, it turned out that the mobile trailers of the activists are not located on the territory of the Lydian Armenia company. In addition, the activists are also not on the territory of the company, respectively, there are no intrusions on their part," the police said in a written response.
The developments around the Amulsar gold mine stood for a long time silent before escalating again in clashes between the civil activists and security forces. On 1 July 2020, tensions escalated between civil activists, the residents of Jermuk town, and the Armenian police at the checkpoint nearby Amulsar gold mine. The trigger for these tensions was an agreement reached a day prior which foresaw that the staff of Amulsar's new security organization leave the area, and only those who are on duty remain, but this staff has not left yet. A day later the tensions ended with the withdrawal of the armed security guards from the territory of the mine (Caucasus Watch reported).
