Armenians Halt Strike in Soviet Area : Protesters Assured of Official Support on Disputed Region

Armenian protesters in Yerevan called off a strike today after being assured of official support for uniting disputed Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia, but the Azerbaijani parliament said it would not yield the territory.

Communist Party chiefs of both republics also warned the populace against letting emotions get the upper hand in the bitter tug of war over the future of Nagorno-Karabakh, a predominantly Armenian enclave inside Azerbaijan.

“All the accumulated problems must be solved without emotionalism,” Armenian party chief Serun Arutunyan told crowds in the Armenian capital Monday, Yerevan Radio reported today.

A general strike that brought Yerevan to a standstill on Monday was canceled after Arutunyan promised a crowd of 100,000 that the Armenian parliament would back their demands, a spokesman for Armenpress news agency said.

“The situation is normalizing. There is no tension in the city and no strikes,” the spokesman said in a telephone interview from Yerevan today.

Ceding ‘Unacceptable’

But in Azerbaijan, the parliament declared that the Armenians would not have their way.

The Presidium of the Azerbaijani Supreme Soviet said ceding Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia was “unacceptable” and “contrary to the interests of the Azerbaijani and Armenian population of the republic,” Baku Radio reported today.

Such a move would also be “incompatible with the tasks of consolidating the friendship between all the peoples of our country,” the radio in the Azerbaijani capital said.

It said the parliament made its decision in a meeting Monday after studying a request by Nagorno-Karabakh’s regional council for unification with Armenia.

The appeal, first made in February, sparked mass demonstrations of support in Yerevan and ethnic turmoil in both Transcaucasian republics that has taken 35 lives.