Azerbaijan, Armenia OK Cease-Fire : Border unrest: Truce approved by Soviet Parliament, Armenian All-National Movement and People’s Front of Nakhichevan.

Negotiators today reached an agreement calling for a cease-fire along a border separating heavily armed camps of Armenian and Azerbaijani nationalists, Tass press agency said.

Tass said the cease-fire was declared by members of the Soviet Parliament, the Armenian All-National Movement and the People’s Front of Nakhichevan.

The cease-fire was to take effect immediately along the 130-mile border separating Armenia and Nakhichevan, an autonomous region within Armenia that considers itself part of the neighboring republic of Azerbaijan.

The border region has been among the most tense in the bloody struggle between Armenian and Azerbaijani nationalists that erupted throughout the two republics on Jan. 13 and has killed at least 171 people.

The violence began with anti-Armenian riots in Azerbaijan, but it grew into a drive for secession by some Azerbaijanis. Soviet soldiers on Saturday occupied the Azerbaijani capital of Baku, the scene of some of the fiercest fighting.

“According to the agreement . . . along the entire border between Armenia and the Nakhichevan Autonomous Region all exchanges of fire between opposing informal groups must stop,” Tass said in an announcement.

The statement, which also was read over the nightly TV news program “Vremya,” said the cease-fire was to start at 4 p.m. Moscow time, but the announcement did not say whether shooting had actually stopped.

Both republics have been closed to most foreign reporters, and the status of the cease-fire could not immediately be confirmed independently.

Tass said the negotiators who reached the cease-fire accord will meet again Saturday to agree on disbanding militias in the region and sending them home. It said Soviet army soldiers would guarantee the agreement.

In another sign of accommodation, a Baltic nationalist group said earlier today that an Armenian organization has accepted an invitation to attend peace talks aimed at ending the entire ethnic conflict with Azerbaijanis.

There was no word on whether an Azerbaijani delegation would attend the talks, planned for Monday in the Latvian capital, Riga.

Communist leaders in Azerbaijan today blamed their former leader for the crisis and expelled him from the party. More Soviet troops were reported killed in attacks by militants in Baku.

In a telephone interview today from Riga, Anda Anspoka of the Latvian People’s Front said the group received a letter of confirmation from the Armenian People’s Front to attend a peace conference Monday.

The Armenian group authorized its representatives to “sign any documents” to end the ethnic strife, Anspoka said.