Canada-based gold company starts drilling near Cappadocia

Photos: Avanos Municipality

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A Canada-based company has started gold mine drilling in the Avanos town in Nevşehir, central Turkey.

Photos released by the Avanos Municipality show cut down trees and caterpillars working on Mount Ziyaret, which is approximately 20 kilometers away from the Cappadocia World Heritage site.

Gold mines in the mountain might contaminate the region's drinking and agricultural irrigation water, Avanos Mayor Celal Alper İbaş warned.

The operations are carried out by Centerra Gold, a company from Canada. A gold mine opened by another Canada-based company, Alamos Gold, on Ida (Kaz) Mountains in the western Çanakkale province caused public outrage last year.

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Opposition politicians criticized the operations, saying that a gold mine in the area would also harm Cappadocia, a major tourist attraction famous for its "fairy chimneys."

"These lands have thousands of years of history," said Ali Öztunç, a deputy chair responsible for nature conservation at the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP).

"They handed Mount Ziyaret to a company that allegedly caused the poisoning of 5,000 people with cyanide in Kyrgyzstan," he said.

Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) deputy Ali Kenanoğlu submitted a parliamentary question, asking the minister of agriculture and forest how many trees will be cut down during the operations.

The Chamber of Architects Ankara Branch said in a statement that it would file a lawsuit against the mining operations in the region.

"Those who get punished even when they break a single branch in their country are continuing to loot our forests in our country," said the chamber's Ankara Branch Chair Tezcan Karakuş-Candan. "The Canadian companies that destroyed the Kaz Mountains now have their eyes on Nevşehir."

He noted that the region was afforested by locals and has cultural and touristic importance.

(VK)