Armenia Communist Party Chief Replaced

MOSCOW — The leader of the Armenian Communist Party was replaced on Friday by a subordinate after two years of unremitting turmoil in the southern Soviet republic.

Suren G. Arutyunyan, who had been named the Armenian party’s first secretary in May, 1988, after months of strife with neighboring Azerbaijan, is succeeded by Vladimir M. Movsisyan, who had been chairman of the republic’s agro-industrial commission and a first deputy prime minister.

The official news agency Tass said that Arutyunyan, 51, a veterinarian who has worked as a party official for nearly 30 years, had sought a transfer to other unspecified duties. While Tass gave no explanation for the abrupt change, which was made by the Armenian party’s Central Committee, Arutyunyan was regarded both in Moscow and in Armenia as less and less effective in dealing with the growing nationalism there.