Aram Harutyunian has no intention of apologizing for incident

During a briefing in the parliament today, Armenian Minister of Nature Protection Aram Harutyunian commented on the incident that took place yesterday at an international conference.

“The situation was as follows: a group of people entered the hall and tried to disrupt the event. In that situation I proposed that the unscheduled discussion should be held outside the hall. I said I would answer all the questions. Unfortunately the impression was that the problems could be solved by means of personal insults, shouts and unreasonable accusations,” the minister said. He urged reporters to assess the situation, noting that the activists stood on chairs.

When asked if he is going to apologize for such a reaction, Aram Harutyunian replied: “There was not any planned, deliberate word. I had to react so abruptly”.

As was reported earlier, during the international conference ‘Responsible Mining in Armenia: Opportunities and Challenges’ held at Marriott Hotel in Yerevan on March 25, a group of environmental activists with placards “Armenia won’t become a new pillaged Africa” and “Tailing dump is an active cemetery” entered the hall, as a result of which the conference was temporarily suspended.

The activists brought glasses of water from the Gekhi River in Syunik province of Armenia. They proposed that the ministers of energy and natural resources, nature protection, and economy participating in the confrence should drink the water polluted by discharges from the tailing dump of Hankasar mine.

When one of the activists reminded those present about the statement of the nature protection inspectorate’s employee that Ministry of Nature Protection is a ‘cemetery’, Aram Harutyunian angrily said: “You brat! You should know where to stop. I will tear off your ears and put them in your hand”.