2 Soviet Party Chiefs End Armenian Enclave Dispute

Communist Party leaders from the two troubled Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed Tuesday to end their dispute over the future of Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan, and to work together for its economic and social development.

At an unprecedented meeting in Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, the two party officials publicly accepted the decision of the country’s central leadership that the mountainous region remain part of Azerbaijan despite demands that it be transferred to Armenia. An intensive effort has been promised to resolve the region’s political, economic and social problems.

Soren Arutyunan, first secretary of the party in Armenia, and Abdul-Rahman Zezirov, first secretary in Azerbaijan, were brought together with officials from Nagorno-Karabakh by Arkady I. Volsky, special delegate of the party’s Central Committee. Volsky was sent to restore order in the two republics after six months of disturbances.

The meeting, which included discussions with local officials and residents, was the first major step toward public reconciliation between the two party leaders, who for months had exchanged charges of misrule and fomenting separatism.

Tass, the official Soviet news agency, said the party leaders agreed on “a number of constructive proposals to ensure a fuller utilization of the abilities of both republics” to help the region in the first major step toward resolving its underlying problems.

‘Far-Reaching Measures’

“Many problems and difficulties” had accumulated over the years, and this required “far-reaching measures to rectify the present situation,” Tass said.

It said Soviet officials acknowledged that the initial orders from the Supreme Soviet, the country’s nominal Parliament, and from the party’s policy-making Central Committee “so far are being fulfilled in an unsatisfactory manner.” And it said this was true at all levels of government, apparently due to resistance to the decision that Nagorno-Karabakh will remain part of Azerbaijan.

The region’s Armenians, who account for two-thirds of its population, have complained bitterly that the Azerbaijani authorities ignored their economic and social development for decades and refused to permit them to follow their own cultural traditions.

Armenians in Stepanakert as well as in Armenia itself have said by telephone in the past week that passions have cooled but that there is still a strong feeling that Nagorno-Karabakh should be transferred from Azerbaijan. Last Friday, an estimated half a million people reportedly gathered in Yerevan, the Armenian capital, to protest the decision against the region’s transfer.

Meanwhile, police investigators continue to prepare cases against people arrested in connection with the riots in late February in Sumgait, an oil town in Azerbaijan. By official count, 32 people were killed, all but six of them Armenians, in what is officially described as an Azerbaijani pogrom against the Armenian community there.

The labor newspaper Trud reported that 94 people had been arrested in connection with the riots in Sumgait. Altogether, 36 people have been reported killed in the unrest.