The World : New Azerbaijan Riots Told

New ethnic disturbances broke out in Baku, capital of Soviet Azerbaijan, according to reports reaching Moscow. But an employee of the Azerbaijani Communist Party newspaper Bakinsky Rabochy, in a telephone call from Baku, could not immediately confirm reports from Moscow-based human rights monitors of killings as Azerbaijanis armed with knives hunted Armenians. A wave of violence swept Azerbaijan in February, when rioters in Sumgait north of Baku killed at least 32 Armenians. More violence was reported last month when Sumgait defendants went on trial. The disorders erupted over the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, an Azerbaijani region populated mainly by ethnic Armenians who are demanding its incorporation into the Armenian Soviet republic.