Azerbaijanis Decide to Resume Railroad Service to Armenia

MOSCOW — Leaders of a political movement in the southern republic of Azerbaijan suspended on Tuesday a rail strike that choked off supplies of fuel, food and housing supplies to neighboring Armenia, a member said.

“We decided in a directive to open the railroad to Armenia as of 2200 (10 p.m.),” said Ingilap Aslanov, a member of the grass-roots People’s Front, in a telephone interview from the Azerbaijani capital, Baku.

He said the strike was suspended until Oct. 23 to give lawmakers in Moscow a chance to respond to Azerbaijan’s demands to remove special Kremlin administration of the Nagorno-Karabakh area--the source of a ethnic strife between Azerbaijanis and Armenians.

Soviet troops moved into the Caucasus republics last week to break the strike and blockade that has been strangling Armenia and the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.