Kyrgyzstan, Canadian firm settle row over gold mine

Kyrgyzstan, Canadian firm settle row over gold mine

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan: Kyrgyzstan reached an agreement with Canada’s Centerra Gold to take full control over the long-contested Kumtor gold mine, the ex-Soviet country’s president and the company said Monday. “Kumtor has fully passed into Kyrgyzstan’s ownership,” President Sadyr Japarov said in a televised national address that came almost a year after Kyrgyz authorities seized control of the gold mine, prompting Centerra to file for international arbitration.

“An amicable agreement has just been signed… Congratulations to the people of Kyrgyzstan on this achievement. This is truly a turning point for the country. This is how the national interests of the republic should be protected,” Japarov said. The Kumtor gold mine accounts for around 12 percent of the economy of Kyrgyzstan, a landlocked, mountainous country of nearly seven million people. But successive disputes over the mine have helped spoil the investment climate and fuel infighting between political factions in the country.

Centerra said in a statement that it had agreed with Kyrgyzstan “to effect a clean separation of the parties” and to resolve all their disputes. The agreement means that Centerra will relinquish ownership of Kumtor, the company said, while Kyrgyzstan will relinquish its 26-percent stake in the Toronto stock exchange-listed miner. “Centerra understands that the