I Knew About the Decision on Amulsar Eight Months Ago When I Was Still the Head of the Environmental Inspectorate: Arthur Grigoryan

I knew about the decision on Amulsar eight months ago when I was still the head of the environmental inspectorate. During this entire time, I presented facts to the closest people around me and explained that the only explanation for the illogical actions of the current government is that they are maintaining a corrupted system with all its shadow mechanisms. Why? Because today's government is essentially the same, with the same modus operandi and responsibility; otherwise, why would the new ones take on the responsibility for the actions of the old ones? This is only possible when you are the same person—just a different face of the same subject.

Please present a different logic. Regarding the Amulsar issue, they don’t have enough arguments that they resort to saying, 'Why aren’t you fighting against the other mines?' Are you trying to say that the others are also operating illegally? Then why are you showing inaction? Should I start talking about the results of the inspection in Kajaran?

Until now, I didn’t consider it appropriate to present delicate details regarding the government’s working style—after all, many of the people we walked this path with were in the governmental camp. But today, after the barricade that was created and the low-quality lies of these days, there is no point in being nuanced; a clear division line must be drawn before the people in power, as their factor is being used within the government to create an illusion of debate when the course of action has already been determined a long time ago.

From the day of my appointment, Avinyan's office has been actively engaged in opening the roads to Amulsar through my efforts, and when that didn’t work out, they started lobbying for me to declare the inspection act by the inspectorate invalid. I don't know which part was agreed with Prime Minister Pashinyan, but the implementers are the Avinyan-Aghajanyan duo with their assistant deputies. Even during a meeting with the leadership of Lydian, company representatives told me directly, 'We were told that you were going to open the roads leading to Amulsar.' 'Who told you that?' 'From the government...'

Now let me make two substantive comments to understand the logic of the process: To clarify what kind of monstrous lie we are dealing with, I must say that this so-called Lebanese expertise was an absolute fiction. The arbitration fears presented as facts are also a fiction.

1. Remember when Pashinyan learned that the permission for the exploitation of Amulsar was granted based exclusively on the studies conducted by the company, he said directly, 'I cannot grant permission with closed eyes; we need to invite the best specialists in the world to conduct research for us so that we have our own reliable data, not the information provided by the company.' This meant implementing the same work that the company’s specialists had carried out—field research, sample studies, and so on. As a result, there was only an office study of the documents provided by the company. What was that? Did we get reliable data, say, about the underground waters or biodiversity in that area? No, we did not. This action, for which we paid, was not the expertise that Pashinyan announced.
2. As an indisputable truth, they confidently present a nonsensical alternative: is the mine going to be exploited or are we going to pay 700 million dollars as a result of arbitration? The question is, who made that calculation and on what legal grounds did they come to the conclusion that there will be arbitration, and the state will lose there and specifically pay that amount? Tell me the names of those who are behind that calculation. Also, show the documents that were the basis for making that calculation. Those who say that are lying; it is plain and tasteless.

You might ask, why are they behaving this way? Corruption, plain and simple corruption. I believe there is no longer any point in discussing the actions of this government and their logic, trying to find some deep meaning in them. For me, the only reasonable subject of discussion can be the political process surrounded by powerful ideology.