1 Million Reportedly Take Part as Protests Continue in Armenia

Despite Kremlin efforts to halt them, massive demonstrations continued Thursday in Soviet Armenia over a disputed region in the neighboring republic of Azerbaijan. According to some reports, as many as 1 million people have taken to the streets in an unprecedented show of defiance.

Moscow sent three members of the Politburo to Armenia, the smallest of the Soviet republics, along with a Communist Party secretary in an effort to stop the demonstrations.

The Associated Press quoted sources in Yerevan, the Armenian capital, as saying that troops had been alerted and tanks moved to the outskirts of the city.

Foreign correspondents were prohibited from traveling to Armenia.

At issue is the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, an autonomous region in Azerbaijan about the size of the state of Delaware. Many Armenians insist that it should be part of Armenia because the majority of its people are Armenian.

The Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party has denounced those who advocate redrawing the republic’s boundaries, which were fixed in 1923.

The demonstrations began last weekend, apparently touched off by a protest against locating a factory in a city near Yerevan. They have continued, in Yerevan and in Nagorno-Karabakh, despite appeals for calm by party leaders in Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Pyotr N. Demichev, a non-voting Politburo member, was sent to Armenia with Georgy P. Razumovsky, a party secretary elevated to membership in the Politburo last week. Later, another member of the Politburo, Vladimir I. Dolgikh, and Anatoly I. Lukyanov, a party secretary, were also sent.

Reports from Yerevan indicate that the number of demonstrators is far greater than earlier in the week. The Associated Press quoted a source in Yerevan as saying that 1 million people--nearly one-third of the city’s population--joined the protest Thursday.

According to dissident sources in Moscow, who say they have been in touch with people in Yerevan, there have been work stoppages and school boycotts. There also have been reports of heavy casualties among Armenians, but the Soviet news agency Tass quoted a government official as saying the reports were false.