Soviet Deputies Decry Actions in Azerbaijan

Members of the Soviet Parliament’s opposition group condemned the government today for failing to quell ethnic violence in the Caucasus and for relying on force instead of negotiations.

Azerbaijani activists, meanwhile, said Soviet troops raided the republic’s mission in Moscow and arrested a nationalist leader.

A newspaper also reported today that President Mikhail S. Gorbachev was warned by two senior Soviet military leaders not to send troops into Azerbaijan just hours before the soldiers were deployed.

Thirteen members of the Inter-Regional Group of progressive deputies in the Soviet Congress issued a declaration saying authorities took action “too late” in the simmering conflict between Azerbaijanis and Armenians.

They proposed an emergency session of the Supreme Soviet, the government’s standing legislature, to mediate the dispute and called for a deadline for the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Azerbaijan.

The unrest and the government’s delayed, armed reaction to it “represent a threat to perestroika ,” the Kremlin’s program of reforms, Deputy Sergei Stankevich said.

Azerbaijani activists said today that police twice raided the Azerbaijani government’s building in Moscow during the night and arrested a leader of the nationalist Azerbaijani People’s Front, Ekhtibar Mamedov.

The account was not confirmed by police spokesmen, who said they had not heard of any such raid. But a visit by a reporter to the mission revealed several broken-down doors and scattered documents in the offices.

In Baku, military commandant Lt. Gen. Vladimir Dubinyak said today the situation was “relatively calm,” Tass press agency reported. In the last 24 hours, 147 people had been detained in Baku curfew violations, it said.