Armenian, Azerbaijani Leaders at Odds as Tension Increases

The Communist Party leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan differed sharply on a regional dispute today as strikes and demonstrations swept the tense Soviet Transcaucasian region.

Armenian party chief Suren Arutunyan promised a parliamentary vote in favor of uniting the Azerbaijani region of Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia, but Azerbaijani leader Abdul Vezirov declared that his republic would not cede the territory, officials said.

Both leaders were speaking at mass demonstrations in the capitals of their republics.

Arutunyan’s olive branch was offered to more than 100,000 protesters in Yerevan as Armenians launched a general strike to demand that the republic’s Supreme Soviet discuss the Nagorno-Karabakh issue when it meets this week.

“He assured the demonstrators that the deputies would vote in favor of unification,” a spokesman for the official Armanpress news agency said.

Vezirov spoke to 10,000 demonstrators in Baku, where a policeman was shot to death over the weekend in a new outbreak of ethnic unrest over Nagorno-Karabakh.

“He told the crowd that the Presidium of the Azerbaijani Supreme Soviet had voted to reject the idea of giving up Nagorno-Karabakh,” an Azerbaijani press official said.

Officials in Baku said Vezirov met the demonstrators on his return from consultations with authorities in Moscow.