Blockade of Armenia Lifted, Trains Delivering Cargo, Soviets Announce

A Soviet police general said Tuesday that a monthlong Azerbaijani blockade of neighboring Armenia was being lifted and that 11 cargo trains had gone in and out of the republic in the past 24 hours.

Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev told the Soviet Parliament on Monday that “concrete measures” would be taken if the blockade was not lifted within two days.

The rail and highway blockade was imposed last month by Azerbaijani workers in an apparent bid to starve Armenia into submission in the two republics’ longstanding dispute over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, which lies within Azerbaijan. Ethnic Armenians are the majority in the territory.

The blockade has starved Armenia’s industries of raw materials, private cars have vanished from the roads and even emergency vehicles have been subject to gasoline rationing. There are long lines outside groceries.

“Seven trains, consisting of 290 cars, had crossed into Armenia by 6 a.m. today,” Gen. Vladimir Yegorov of the transport police told a news conference Tuesday. “They were carrying machinery, building materials, paper and coal.”

He expressed confidence that the road blockade would also be lifted by today’s deadline.

In his speech Monday, Gorbachev said there were few signs of an end to the 20-month-old Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, in which more than 100 people have been killed and hundreds of thousands have fled their homes in both republics.