Prime Minister of Armenia : “Still there are problems in Yerevan”

A session of the National Council for Sustainable Development took place in the Government under the presidency of the Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan.

In the Council are involved ministers, deputies of the National Assembly and leaders of non-governmental organizations (Elena Manvelyan represented “Armenian Women for Health and Healthy Environment” NGO). The Office of Public Relations and Information of the Armenian Government informed that among the participants were also representatives from the Yerevan Municipality and the National Academy of Sciences of the republic.

The Prime Minister noted that henceforth the problems of ecology, urban development and many other issues would be put for discussions during the sessions of the Council, and this would result in finding proper and acceptable solutions for the implementation of the principles of the National Program of Sustainable Development.

Afterwards, the issues related to the ecological status of Yerevan , the main causes, effects, ways of improvement and also the problem of waste disposal were discussed by the Council.

In their reports on ecological condition of Yerevan Karine Danielyan, the President of the “Association for Human Sustainable Development” NGO and Avet Martirosyan, the Chief of Ecological Management Board of the Yerevan Municipality, touched upon the questions concerning the urban-industrial environment and water basin of the city Yerevan, the status of the green zone, zones of seismic activity, environmental impact on the health of the population, possible scenarios of ecological development policy and other issues. The problem of waste disposal was presented by Gagik Khachatryan, the chief of the Public Services Department of the Yerevan Municipality .

The participants of the session shared their opinions about the questions raised in the reports.

The Prime Minister underlined not only the importance of analysis of the existing problems, but also of the suggestions for their solution. He stated that during the next session there would be discussed the problem of Lake Sevan and at the same time he instructed the reporters to present their suggestions on this subject to the Council.

Tigran Sargsyan agreed with the opinions of the leaders of NGOs and the deputies of the National Assembly who said that no work could be estimated positively unless there remained even one unacceptable, illogical and reprehensible phenomenon.

According to the words of the Prime Minister the current problems should be fundamentally solved and the NGOs should assist in these activities as much as possible.

26 January 2009 [10:04] – Day.Az