Armenian Leader of Nagorno-Karabakh Parliament Assassinated

Gunmen Tuesday assassinated the head of Parliament in Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian-populated enclave of Azerbaijan fighting for self-rule, the Interfax news agency said.

The agency, quoting a parliamentary spokesman, said ethnic Armenian Artur Mkrtchyan was shot in the early evening at his home in the regional capital of Stepanakert. The assailants fled, it said.

More than 1,500 people have been killed in four years of conflict over Karabakh. In recent months, Armenian militants have pushed back Azerbaijani forces in the territory, but losses have been great on both sides.

The Russian news agency Itar-Tass said parliamentary leaders in nearby Armenia, including President Levon Ter-Petrosyan, met in emergency session after the killing and decided to send a team of experts to Karabakh to investigate.

The Karabakh Interior Ministry, cited by Itar-Tass, made it clear that it considered the killing of Mkrtchyan, 34-year-old president of the Karabakh Parliament, a political act.

It said a hunt for the “terrorists” has begun.

The Pro-Armenia news agency said Mkrtchyan’s wife and child survived the attack. It did not say if they were wounded.

The killing could again raise tensions in the region, where numerous attempts to broker a cease-fire appear to have failed.

Itar-Tass, quoting the Azerbaijan Defense Ministry, said Armenian guerrillas shelled border villages in northwestern Azerbaijan Tuesday. It said dozens of people had been killed and more than 100 wounded in Nagorno-Karabakh over the last few days with several villages burned down and about 500 villagers taken hostage.

No independent confirmation of the report was available.

In a report from the Armenian capital of Yerevan, Itar-Tass said that Azerbaijani forces fired Grad missiles Monday night at Stepanakert. It said two people were wounded in the attack, which continued into Tuesday morning.

In a separate report, it said that an Azerbaijani militant last week hijacked an SU-25 attack aircraft from the Sitelchai air base, near the capital of Baku. It quoted military sources as saying the aircraft could be used in the Karabakh conflict.