Absolutely no evidence of corruption by Lydian: U.S. Ambassador

There is absolutely no evidence of corruption by Lydian, U.S. Ambassador to Armenia Richard Mills said in an interview to EVN Report.

“I’m not aware that they have violated environmental norms,” the Ambassador said. “The financing has come in part from shareholders and investors, the initial financing came through international organizations like the EBRD, the World Bank, which have their own environmental requirements before they would get involved in a mining project like this.”

He went on to say that what is disturbing is that the company has not even done any mining at the site. “They’re still in the construction, pre-mining phase, so the mine was shut down, without any real threat to the environment,” he noted. “You could have conducted another environmental assessment, if that’s what the company and the government agreed, while the construction was going on; why it had to be stopped now, I’m not sure.”

The diplomat also added that there 27 other mines in Armenia and none of them are being shut down. “I’ll accept face value that there was environmental concern...But the magical thinking here is that you’re going to do that and there will be no repercussions on Armenia’s attractiveness for international investors.”

According to Mills, Amulsar is a state-of-the-art, environmentally sensitive project that has gone through “a lot of steps” with no evidence of corruption as far as he knows and now it has been ordered to cease operations “and not on the basis of any legal decision or government decision.” Protesters have blocked the road to the mine and Mills noted that while he is a big believer in civil disobedience “it’s justified when you’re in an environment, like perhaps we were in April/May where there are no other avenues to express your views. I’m not sure this is the case, that it justifies civil disobedience that has resulted in hundreds of people losing their jobs with this investment closing.”

Mills said that businesspeople and investors in the U.S. are sophisticated enough and would understand if the Armenian government reevaluated the project if there was evidence of something askew. “But there’s none of that and there’s a feeling that this is being done somehow without due process and without the rule of law and that’s very concerning,” he explained.

“It does create an investment concern and that’s not a threat, it’s not something that I’m going to be pleased to say. But my first responsibility is to U.S. interests and U.S. citizens and investors and if they ask me I’m going to say, well you need to know that this thing has happened to Lydian and you draw your own conclusions, but I fear the conclusion they’ll draw.”