Armenians End Strike as Local Party Chiefs Back Enclave Demand

A general strike in the southern Soviet republic of Armenia was called off Tuesday after local Communist Party leaders promised official support for incorporating a disputed region from neighboring Azerbaijan.

The move averted a dramatic challenge to the Soviet authorities, but at the same time it posed a major constitutional problem for Moscow as Azerbaijani leaders declared they would never yield Nagorno-Karabakh, a largely Armenian enclave that has been part of their republic for 65 years.

The Soviet leadership now will have to decide whether to transfer Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia, ending the prolonged crisis there but perhaps creating a precedent for similar grievances, or to retain it as part of Azerbaijan, risking prolonged disturbances in both republics.

The issue is one of extreme sensitivity because the initial confrontation left at least 32 people dead last February. And Soviet political observers warn privately that the death toll could rise significantly if the leadership’s decision goes against the Azerbaijanis, who are determined to retain the region as part of their national patrimony.

These sources say that Armenian anger, although it might be more subdued, could seriously undercut the country’s current reform program because of the prominence of Armenian scientists, economists, educators and other intellectuals in the effort.

Pledge on Annexation

Suren G. Arutunyan, Armenia’s new Communist Party first secretary, reiterated his pledge that party members who dominate the republic’s legislature would vote today to annex Nagorno-Karabakh. Arutunyan first made the promise Monday to a rally of an estimated 100,000 people in the republic’s capital of Yerevan.

He also appealed in repeated radio and television broadcasts for a return to work and an end to the mass demonstrations that paralyzed Yerevan and many district towns Sunday and Monday.

The republic’s official news agency Armenpress later reported that “the situation is returning to normal. There is no tension in the city and no strikes.”

Moses Gorgisyan, an Armenian activist jailed in April and May for leading nationalist demonstrations in Yerevan, said in a telephone interview that most people have returned to work. But he said that some, skeptical of Arutunyan’s promises, had continued their protests in the city’s main square.

In Baku, the Azerbaijani capital, officials repeated their determination to retain Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous district of 184,000 people, three-quarters of whom are Armenian.

The leadership of the Azerbaijani legislature, meeting Tuesday, declared that ceding the area to Armenia was “unacceptable” and “contrary to the interests of the Azerbaijani and Armenian population of the republic,” Radio Baku reported. The proposed transfer would also be “incompatible with the tasks of consolidating the friendship among all the peoples of our country,” the report added.

But Abdul-Rakhman Vezirov, the Azerbaijani Communist Party first secretary, also warned people to remain calm and “not to allow the exacerbation of fears and emotions that can result in unforeseen consequences.”

Police Officer Killed

The most recent death in the unrest occurred at a weekend protest in Baku when a police sergeant, an Azerbaijani, was fatally wounded after an Armenian apparently opened fire on marchers and a ricocheting bullet hit the officer.

Earlier this year, 32 people, almost all of them Armenians, were killed in ethnic riots, largely in the Azerbaijani city of Sumgait.

A formal request from Nagorno-Karabakh’s elected deputies for the region’s transfer from Azerbaijan to Armenia will come before the Azerbaijani legislature at the end of the week, officials said in Baku. It is certain to be turned down.

Under the Soviet constitution, both republics would have to agree to any territorial changes, and the shifts would have to be approved by the central authorities, who have already implied that they would work out measures to settle the region’s grievances--short of its transfer to Armenia.

“We are interested in Moscow’s answer,” Gorgisyan said. “Moscow has been silent so far.”