Tass Reports Violence in Azerbaijan City

Public disorder has erupted in Sumgait, an industrial city in Azerbaijan, in the wake of massive demonstrations by Armenians seeking control over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, the Tass news agency reported Monday.

Tass’ brief account did not connect the disorder in Sumgait to the dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh, an autonomous region within Azerbaijan, but an Armenian dissident told the Associated Press that Armenians were beaten and attacked with knives.

For the past week, Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh and in Yerevan, the Armenian capital, have been demonstrating for Armenian control over the region.

Tass said that “rampage and violence” broke out after a “group of hooligans provoked disturbances” Sunday in Sumgait, a city of about 124,000 people on the Caspian Sea. It said nothing about casualties or property damage.

The dissident told the AP that the incident in Sumgait was touched off by tension between Armenians, most of whom are Christians, and Azeris, who are predominantly Muslim. The majority of the people in Nagorno-Karabakh are Armenian.

‘Several People Were Knifed’

“Thugs in Sumgait went up to people and asked them if they were Armenian or not,” he said. “They started to beat up people who said they were Armenian. Several people were knifed.”

A senior official sent to the troubled area from Moscow reported over the weekend that two Azeris had been killed in clashes near Nagorno-Karabakh. He said several other people had been hurt.

In contrast to the delay in reporting the two deaths, Tass was quick to report the outbreak at Sumgait. It said “measures have been adopted to normalize the situation in the city and safeguard discipline and public order.” It did not specify what these measures might be but added that an investigation has been undertaken.

According to a broadcast from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, there were clashes between Armenians and Azerbaijanis in the Agdamsky district, adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh. It said these led to beatings and to fires being set.

Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev has promised that the dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh, which has its roots in a 1923 decision to detach the region from Armenia, will be “justly resolved.”