Raffi Hovannisian: Armenia is sinking into poverty

 Today a leader of the "Heritage" party, and former Foreign Minister, Raffi Hovannisian,  made a statement, which says that Armenia "is sinking into  poverty and hopelessness."

"Is more than obvious that the growth of Armenia's mining industry was not in tune with the public interest, and represented  the interest of privileged officials, that  have accumulated  great  wealth, in a time when our country is sinking into poverty and hopelessness,"  reads the statement.

We have seen how, under the pretext of public interest flagrant violations are made, historical monuments and ecosystems is being destroyed. Instead of lakes and dense forests, we are surrounded by dangerous emissions. Our homeland is poisoned,"  reads the statement.

Hovannisian  demanded to stop  unbridled exploitation of the natural resources of Armenia.

In particular, he mentioned the felling of 60 hectares of forest while development of the Teghut mine rich copper and molybdenum field, on the border of Armenia and Georgia. According to ecologists and experts, the waste  of ore from the processing of metals in this field will be the largest in Armenia, and there will be million tons of poisoned land.

The Armenian government plans to extract from the field during 25 years, copper and molybdenum in the amount of half a billion dollars. -02D-