By Marco Aquino
LIMA (Reuters) -Miners in Peru who have been allowed to operate with temporary permits have paused protests that blocked a major copper transit route for more than two weeks, one of the protest leaders, Luis Huaman, told Reuters on Tuesday.
He said they planned to suspend the protest at least through Friday, while continuing to press the government for a way to extend their permits.
Peru’s government has been working to end the program for operations known as “informal,” which was created over a decade ago and meant to be temporary, but workers in the sector say the stricter regulations to operate legally are too onerous.
The protests began throughout Peru in late June, including blocking a road in the Cusco region that is used by major miners MMG, Glencore and Hudbay Minerals, whose mines are among the top 10 copper producers of Peru.
The Andean nation is the world’s third-biggest copper producer.
The Ministry of Energy and Mines is aiming to bring more than 31,000 informal miners in line with regulations by the end of the year, after removing more than 50,000 others from the program earlier this month. The ministry said at least 45,000 of those hadn’t registered any activity in the last four years.
“It’s a truce,” Huaman said. A committee of informal miners and various government representatives were scheduled to meet in Lima on Friday to discuss the matter, but protesters would “resume the blockade on the mining corridor” if the outcome was not in their favor, he said.
Huaman said the protesters want the government to ensure a way for informal operations to continue, and said they will restart the protest if an agreement isn’t reached by Friday.
China’s MMG and Canada’s Hudbay last week told top government officials their production could be impacted if the protests were to continue.
(Reporting by Marco Aquino; Writing by Daina Beth Solomon; Editing by Kylie Madry and Leslie Adler)
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