Epress.am News from Armenia
By gathering in the area adjacent to the site belonging to Teghut CJSC, the approx. 200 people on Sunday’s “Teghut Tour” caused the company substantial damage, reads a Jan. 15 statement by Teghut CJSC.
The company states that the visit was unlawful since the environmentalists approached the site, attempted to ignore the land markers and enter the territory belonging to Teghut CJSC.
The Epress.am correspondent on the scene, however, noticed no such attempt to cross the boundary.
Epress.am contacted Vallex Group (of which Teghout CJSC is a subsidiary) for comments.
“We are always ready to take people, show them, and explain our work on the mine, but this time the activists asked to come with 100 people, which we refused since there is currently a large volume of work underway at the mine and the entry of that many people could take 4–8 hours from work time. We suggested that they choose 15 people; they didn’t agree and came with 250 people,” explained head of the Vallex Group public relations division Taguhi Karapetyan.
Asked what specifically was the extent of the damage the company incurred, the Vallex Group spokesperson said that the harm is mainly comprised of “the compulsive suspension of industrial activities and, conditioned by the need to protect our own areas from others’ illegal inroads, the costs incurred by employees’ forced interruption on Jan. 15, 2012.”
According to Karapetyan, the extent of the damages are being determined and “the public will be informed of this after the lawsuits are presented.”
One of the organizers of Sunday’s outing, Arman Vermishyan, commenting on the Vallex Group statement, said that “such absurd statements prove that after the demonstration the company has gotten its feathers ruffled.”
“Considering their previous approach, I thought they would greet us very well and escort us to the tailings area. But, basically, they reacted completely differently, which doesn’t arise from their interests,” he said.
Photo: Ecolur Informational NGO