A deadly combination of corporate favouritism, unchecked greed for profit and blatant disregard for environmental and labour safety regulations has led to a devastating environmental and humanitarian crisis in Turkey, the People’s Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party said on Wednesday.
The joint statement by the Ecology and Agriculture Commission and the Labour Commission of the party comes after a catastrophic landslide trapped nine workers underground at a gold mine with Turkey’s largest cyanide pool in the eastern province of Erzincan on Tuesday.
The DEM Party identified a “chain of responsibility” for the disaster, pointing the finger at Canadian mining company Anagold, its partner Çalık Holding and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its bureaucrats for their collective failure to prevent the disaster. The landslide released highly toxic cyanide, into the air, water and soil, posing long-term environmental and health risks to the region.
The Çöpler mine hit the headlines in June 2022 after a pipeline burst, spilling 20 cubic metres of cyanide solution into the environment. Although Anagold admitted to the spill and claimed to have quickly cleaned up the approximately eight kilograms of cyanide that leaked, the response was deemed inadequate by environmental and local community activists. Despite a hefty fine, no suspension of operations was imposed on the company other than being temporarily shut down due to the cyanide leak.
Hüda Kaya, a former member of parliament for the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), put a parliamentary question to the then Minister of Environment and Urbanisation, Murat Kurum, about the cyanide spill in 2022, to which Kurum replied that there was ‘no risk to human health or the environment’.
Kurum is the AKP candidate for mayor of Istanbul in the coming local elections. Kaya, meanwhile, has been behind bars since her arrest in November 2023 in connection with the Kobane trial, centred around 2014 protests relating to Turkey’s inaction against ISIS in that city.
The DEM Party statement highlighted the government’s oversight in allowing the mine to operate and criticised the expansion of the mine’s capacity despite the obvious dangers. Anagold’s mining activities have escalated significantly since 2019, incorporating a range of harmful chemicals into its production process, including sulphuric acid and cyanide.
Describing the incident as a ‘massacre’, the DEM Party called for the immediate revocation of the licence for this mine and its closure, and the urgent remediation of the heavy metals and toxic chemicals now contaminating the air, water and soil. The party vowed to persistently pursue the issue until all responsible parties are held accountable, and stressed the need for immediate protective measures against chemical poisoning for the affected population.
