Armenians in Protest Over Bloody Clash : Thousands Demand Parliament Action on Azerbaijan Enclave

Thousands of people rallied in Armenia today, closing businesses and schools in a protest that followed a bloody clash between Armenians and Azerbaijanis in a disputed region of the southern Soviet Union.

Meanwhile, one of the 25 people who the official press agency Tass said had been hurt in Sunday’s shoot-out died Monday, an editor of a Tass affiliate said. The clash occurred in the village of Khadzhaly in the predominantly Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh enclave of Azerbaijan.

The executive committee of Armenia’s Supreme Soviet was to meet today or Wednesday to discuss the protesters’ longstanding demands to annex Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenian activist Rafael Popoyan said in a telephone interview from the Armenian capital of Yerevan.

Armenians began campaigning in February for control of Nagorno-Karabakh near the Turkish-Iranian border. Armenians make up 76% of the region’s 162,000 people and have strong historical links to the enclave, which was made part of Azerbaijan in 1923.

Several thousand people gathered today in Yerevan’s downtown square, an Interior Ministry officer said, and were “just standing around conversing.”

Police Patrols Increased

Police stepped up patrols in this city, said a duty officer at Armenia’s Interior Ministry, speaking by telephone from Yerevan.

Popoyan, a 46-year-old former political prisoner, said 1 million Armenians attended a rally in Yerevan Monday night and demanded an emergency meeting of the republic’s Parliament, the Supreme Soviet.

A deputy director of Armenpress, who spoke on condition his name not be used, said more than 250,000 people were at the demonstration.

The protesters want the Supreme Soviet to demand the annexation of Nagorno-Karabakh, Popoyan said. The body has made such a decision, but was rebuffed by the country’s Supreme Soviet in Moscow.

At Monday night’s rally, demonstrators decided to continue a general strike that began Friday, according to Popoyan, and many businesses and schools were closed in Yerevan today.

He said the demonstrators decided to continue the walkout until the Supreme Soviet acts on their demands.

A strike also has been reported in the main city of Nagorno-Karabakh, Stepanakert.