Calls for Karabakh Cease-Fire Ignored; Mass Killing Investigated

Militants Thursday ignored new calls for a cease-fire in the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, and a prosecutor investigating a mass killing said 200 Azerbaijani bodies have been recovered.

The prosecutor also charged for the first time that Armenia is holding hundreds of women and children hostage in the conflict.

Armenian and Azerbaijani sources reported that overnight attacks left a dozen or so dead on each side in this deeply divided multi-ethnic region.

The deaths came despite a peace effort launched Wednesday by Presidents Boris N. Yeltsin of Russia and Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan.

Before the latest reports of a massacre, at least 1,000 Azerbaijanis and Armenians had lost their lives in fighting over the last four years.

Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous region 1,100 miles southeast of Moscow, is populated mostly by Christian Armenians but has been controlled since 1923 by Muslim Azerbaijan.

The Azerbaijani president’s office said 12 people were killed in overnight shelling by Armenians of the Azerbaijani village of Syrkhavend, 15 miles northwest of this city.

The independent Armenian news agency Snark said 16 civilians were killed by Azerbaijanis in the Armenian village of Kazanchi, also near Agdam.

There was no way to independently verify either report.

In the Azerbaijan capital, Baku, Parliament met in emergency session, and President Ayaz Mutalibov said the main task is to strengthen the country’s borders and form a well-equipped regular army, the Azeriform-Tass news agency reported.

That was a direct rejection of Nazarbayev’s peace proposal Wednesday, which urged a moratorium on forming such armies by members of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Mutalibov said Azerbaijan has experienced setbacks in Nagorno-Karabakh because Russia is helping Armenia, according to the Turan news agency.

Azerbaijan has accused the Russian-led Commonwealth troops of participating with Armenian forces in the mass killing in the Nagorno-Karabakh town of Khojaly. A Commonwealth military spokesman denied the charge.

Outside Parliament in Baku, thousands of people drawn to a rally by the opposition Popular Front of Azerbaijan shouted for the resignation of the government leadership and a demilitarized zone in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Adil Agayev, the prosecutor leading an investigation into the killing of Azerbaijani civilians by Armenians in Khojaly, said Thursday that 200 bodies were recovered from the hills and forests around the Azerbaijani town.

Agayev also charged that the Armenians are holding about 600 women and children hostage in Nagorno-Karabakh’s capital, Stepanakert.