Azerbaijanis Tear Down More Iran Border Posts

Crowds of Azerbaijanis began tearing down remaining border installations along a stretch of the Soviet frontier with Iran on Saturday, and troops patrolling the troubled Azerbaijan region of Nakhichevan did not intervene.

Meanwhile, Tehran Radio said Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Mahmoud Vaezi, left for Moscow on Saturday to discuss “bilateral relations” with Soviet officials.

The broadcast, monitored in Nicosia, Cyprus, did not elaborate.

Local journalists said Nakhichevan, scene of a week of turmoil with predominantly Shiite Muslim Azerbaijanis demanding more farmland and freer access to Iranian Shiites across the border, remained tense.

They said angry crowds had rejected a call by an official delegation Friday that damaged border posts, barbed wire and other installations be replaced.

Instead, protesters headed for a stretch of the border Saturday to complete the destruction of frontier posts.

“There has been no interference from the militia or other troops,” said a journalist with the Nakhichevan newspaper Vorota Vostoka. But she said troops in jeeps and armored personnel carriers were patrolling the area and that the families of border troops were being evacuated, raising fears of a crackdown.

The reports could not be independently confirmed. Azerbaijan, including the capital of Baku, has been closed indefinitely to foreign journalists.

A leading Tehran newspaper on Saturday suggested opening the border between Iran’s Azerbaijan province and the Soviet Union to quell the unrest in the region.

The English-language Tehran Times said in an editorial: “An agreement on free border crossing between the two governments . . . will greatly help to alleviate the seething emotions of people who wish to see their ancestral land and visit long-lost relatives.”

Excerpts of the Tehran Times editorial were carried by the Islamic Republic News Agency, also monitored in Nicosia.

The Iranian news agency reported earlier that Iran and the Soviet Union signed a tourism agreement Friday under which Soviets wishing to visit Iran from Azerbaijan would receive special help.

The radical Popular Front, which is leading the protests, has demanded a meeting with Azerbaijani authorities to discuss their grievances.

The turmoil along the Iranian border, which erupted Dec. 31, is the most volatile incident in a wave of ethnic unrest and nationalist fervor gripping the country.

Also Saturday, two people were killed and two injured when an explosion ripped through a bus station in the Soviet Azerbaijani town of Agdam, the official Tass news agency reported.

Tass said initial indications suggested the explosion was caused by a gas leak in the basement of the station.