Soviets Ignore Demands by Armenians : Order Those Who Destabilized Situation to Be Held to Account

The Soviet government today ignored Armenian demands for annexation of a predominantly Armenian section of a neighboring republic and called for efforts to improve social and economic conditions in the area.

A session of the Presidium of the national Supreme Soviet, called after carefully orchestrated appeals by 13 Soviet republics, made no reference to the Armenian demands.

The resolution today appeared to be a definitive response from the Kremlin leadership to the demands regarding the Nagorno-Karabakh region of the republic of Azerbaijan.

Armenian activists want the region united with Armenia.

Ministers Get Orders

The Presidium ordered the Soviet Council of Ministers to “work out all measures directed at deciding the immediate economic and social-cultural development of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region.”

Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev and other top leaders participated in the meeting. It called on officials of Armenia and Azerbaijan to bring to “strict accountability those who with their actions destabilized the situation.”

That statement appeared to indicate authorities would take action not only against those who have been arrested for violence in ethnic rioting that killed at least 32 people, but also Armenian activists.

Earlier, a Moscow dissident said Soviet authorities had sent back to Armenia an activist who had been giving foreign journalists information about the ethnic unrest between Armenians and Azerbaijanis.

Nationalist Sent Home

Alexander Ogorodnikov, a former political prisoner, said Armenian nationalist Paryur Arikyan was put on a plane for Yerevan, the Armenian capital, at 1:30 a.m.

He said calls to Armenian activists in Yerevan today indicated that Arikyan had arrived from Moscow.

Another dissident source, Tamara Grigoryants, said police arrested Arikyan in central Moscow after he met with a Western television journalist.

Thousands of Armenians protested last month for approval to annex Nagorno-Karabakh.

On Feb. 28 rioting broke out in Sumgait, a city of Azerbaijan, in which officials say 32 people were killed.

Armenian activists say at least 78 Armenians were killed by Azerbaijanis in Sumgait.

The rivalry between the mostly Christian Armenians and the Shia Muslim Azerbaijanis goes back centuries.