Azerbaijani Radio Station Is Seized by Nationalists

Azerbaijani nationalists seized the main radio station in the Caspian Sea port city of Lenkoran, effectively taking control of the city from government and police officials, the Tass news agency reported.

In the Azerbaijani capital of Baku, leaders of the Popular Front, an Azerbaijani nationalist movement, called for the expulsion of all Armenians living in that city and a mass march on the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, the Izvestia government newspaper and Tass said.

Tass reported Friday that the “authorities have lost control” in Lenkoran. It said the situation was also “uneasy” in Jalilabad, near Lenkoran and 90 miles south of Baku.

“In Lenkoran, all power has passed into the hands of the People’s Front representatives,” the news agency said.

“The staffs of the district (Communist) party, the executive (city government) committee, the military committee and the police department were not allowed to report to work,” Tass said.

“The local radio station was seized,” Tass said. “A provisional defense committee took over responsibility for maintaining law and order.”

The insurrection, which is aimed at forcing the Kremlin to concede undisputed control of Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan, appeared to be spreading to other areas.

Izvestia said the situation was tense in the Shaumyan and Khanlar districts of Azerbaijan, one of the three republics in the Caucasus along with Georgia and Armenia.