The Sotk gold mine ( hy, Սոթքի ոսկու հանքավայր, translit=Sot’k’i vosku hank’avayr), known in Azerbaijan as the Zod gold mine ( az, Zod qızıl yatağı), is the largest mine in

Armenia Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ''Ox ...

and

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of th ...

in terms of pure gold reserves. It is located in the vicinity of the Sotk village in the Vardenis region of

's Gegharkunik Province, and the adjacent part of the Kalbajar District of Azerbaijan. According to Armenian officials, the gold mine is split roughly in half between the two countries, while according to Azerbaijani officials, 74 percent of the mine lies on Azerbaijani territory.

History

Establishment and operation

The mine was discovered in 1951 and has been in operation since 1976 In 1993, during the

First Nagorno-Karabakh War The First Nagorno-Karabakh War, referred to in Armenia as the Artsakh Liberation War ( hy, Արցախյան ազատամարտ, Artsakhyan azatamart) was an ethnic and territorial conflict that took place from February 1988 to May 1994, in th ...

, the Kalbajar District of Azerbaijan (including the Azerbaijani part of the mine) passed under full control of Armenia and remained so until November 2020 (de jure continuing to be part of Azerbaijan). In 2007, Armenia unilaterally granted the Russian company GeoProMining the right to exploit the mine. 320,500 tons of gold ore were mined in 2009, 490,000 tons in 2010, 880,000 tons in 2011. Between 350 and 400 workers were employed at the mine. The ore has been processed at the Ararat Gold Extraction Plant, where it is transported by rail. Pure gold reserves at the mine are estimated at more than 120 tons. The minimum profitable content of precious metal in the ore is equal to 0.8 g per ton.

After 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war

When the

2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war The Second Nagorno-Karabakh War was an armed conflict in 2020 that took place in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenian-occupied territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh, the surrounding territories. It was a major escalation of ...

began on 27 September, GeoProMining temporarily suspended the operation of the mine. On 25 November 2020, the Armenian troops evacuated by Kalbajar District in accordance with

2020 Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire agreement The 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire agreement is an armistice agreement that ended the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War. It was signed on 9November by the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, the Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan and the Pre ...

, and armed forces of Azerbaijan entered the district. Engineering works and demining were carried out as the Azerbaijani units advanced.Подразделения Азербайджанской Армии вошли в Кельбаджарский район
/ref> The next day, the head of the Armenian community of

Geghamasar Geghamasar ( hy, Գեղամասար) is a village in the Gegharkunik Province of Armenia Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classific ...

(adjacent to Azerbaijan) reported that the Azerbaijani military had entered the mine. The Azerbaijanis had arrived without shooting and demanded that the territory be vacated, followed by negotiations and the mine workers began leaving the territory, though no threats had been made, said Avetyan. On the evening of that day, it was announced that representatives of Armenia, Russia and Azerbaijan had begun carrying out delimitation works using

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a Radionavigation-satellite service, satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of t ...

technology to determine where the state border lay. The Azerbaijani troops set three military posts on the Azerbaijani side of the mine. On 27 November, after lengthy negotiations between the Azerbaijani military and representatives of GeoProMining, the company employees left the Azerbaijani section of the mine.В Ереване ответили на сообщения о нарушении границы армией Азербайджана
/ref>

References

{{coord, 40.233, 45.968, type:landmark_dim:3000, display=title Gold mines in Armenia Gold mines in Azerbaijan Gold mines in the Soviet Union