Yerevan /Mediamax/. Deputy Prime Minister of Armenia Tigran Avinyan has stated that the campaign against operation of Amulsar mine is financed by members of the mining industry.

He announced this on October 22, while speaking about Amulsar with the representatives of the Armenian community of Tbilisi.

“We don’t consider mining industry an area that should be encouraged and intensively developed in Armenia. Nevertheless, Armenia has commitments, and abandoning them can’t be viewed as partner behavior.

Protection of environment is a priority, but our government definitely does not make political decisions outside of the legal framework.

The campaign against Amulsar is ambiguous. There are sincere, honest people who really believe that the Amulsar project is a disaster. But there are also people directly linked with members of mining industry who have invested large amounts of money into the organization of the campaign. I assure you, otherwise you would have never heard about Amulsar, because giving a campaign such scale requires serious financing,” said Avinyan.

He added that “the state of affairs in other mines in Armenia is much worse than in Amulsar, which isn’t even open yet”.