The Kyrgyz leader has signed a law threatening to take the Kumtor gold mine to Canada News

The move will allow the government to take control of the country’s largest gold mine if the Center Gold violates environmental regulations.

The President of Kyrgyzstan has signed the law if the government allows him to take control of the largest gold mine if he sees that the Canadian operator of the facility has violated environmental regulations.

The move comes on Friday as authorities put pressure on Centerra Gold, a Canadian-based miner that controls the Kumtor gold mine, on suspicion that the company has committed more than $ 4 billion in environmental and tax violations.

Kumtor, a mine more than 4,000 meters above sea level in the east of the country, accounts for 10% of the national wireless economy.

Britain and Canada issued a joint statement warning of the “major implications of foreign direct investment in Kyrgyzstan” for the adoption of laws and the potential nationalization of the mine.

The center said last week that a law that allows for “external management” of the mine within three months violates the 2009 agreement governing the mine and that the legal claims against the company are called “fully substantiated”.

It is unclear what would happen after the three months of external management that the government can now impose.

The terms of the company’s agreement with the government allow for the international arbitration of unresolved disputes in the country.

The head of the state commission investigating the mine violations on Wednesday announced a $ 1 billion claim for tax violations against the company.

That was when a court imposed more than $ 3 billion on the company’s Kyrgyz subsidiary for dumping mining debris into glaciers.

Kyrgyzstan, a poor mountainous country with few natural resources, has regularly complained that the Center, a company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange and Kyrgyzstan, has more than a quarter, accusing it of switching to Kumtor.

After being released from prison in a political crisis, President Sadyr Japarov seized sudden control of the Center last October.

As an opposition politician, Japarov made an unsuccessful bid to nationalize the mine, both in parliament and on the street, where he oversaw some chaotic rallies against the company.

At one of those rallies in 2013, a provincial governor was kidnapped – accused of taking the kidnapping in 2017 when Japarov was arrested and the development was the basis for a prison sentence of more than 11 years.