By Nane Sahakian
YEREVAN (Azatutyun) — Armenia’s government approved on January 11 a concessional loan worth 3.5 billion drams ($8.6 million) to a US-Armenian joint venture that relocated, for security reasons, a metallurgical plant which it began building on the border with Azerbaijan last year.
The construction site in Yeraskh, a border village 55 kilometers south of Yerevan, came under fire from nearby Azerbaijani army positions on a virtually daily basis in June.
The automatic gunfire, which left two Indian workers seriously wounded, began one week after the Azerbaijani government protested against the $70 million project. It claimed that building the industrial facility without its permission is a violation of international environmental norms. The Armenian Foreign Ministry brushed aside Baku’s “false” environmental concerns, saying that they are a smokescreen for impeding economic growth and foreign investment in Armenia.
Despite making defiant statements, Armenian and US investors behind the project suspended work on the plant and started moving construction and industrial equipment from the site later in the summer.
In a statement issued after its weekly meeting in Yerevan, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s cabinet confirmed that the facility is now being constructed just outside the town of Ararat, several kilometers from Yeraskh.
