The government of Armenia on Thursday approved the draft on making additions to the law on approving the programs toward the restoration, preservation, reproduction, and use of the ecosystem of Lake Sevan.

In accordance with this draft, the amount of water to be released from the lake for irrigation purposes in 2018 is expected to increase from 170 million cubic meters to up to 210 million cubic meters.

“There were very heated discussions, from which it became clear that there is a real risk that we could create a complicated and deadlock situation for [Armenia’s] agriculture,” Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said, in particular, during the debates on this draft.

In addition, he noted that this situation was at an impasse also due to the authorities’ political conviction that Lake Sevan cannot be treated as a “water container.”

“We need to find out to what extent the existence of a ‘water mafia’—as the press loves to circulate—in Armenia corresponds to reality,” Pashinyan added. “If this is so, it’s unequivocal that this ‘water mafia’ shall be very quickly subjected to capitulation.”