President Flees as Azerbaijan Rebels Advance

With a rebel army advancing toward Baku and his own forces refusing to defend the capital, Azerbaijan’s first democratically elected president secretly fled at 4 a.m. Friday, leaving this newly independent former Soviet republic in chaos.

Geidar Aliyev, Azerbaijan’s former KGB head and Communist leader, stunned the nation by appearing on television at noon to announce that President Abulfez Elchibey had flown from Baku to his hometown near the Iranian border.

Aliyev, who was named chairman of the Parliament Tuesday, said he was reluctantly assuming the executive powers of head of state since Elchibey had left abruptly and could not be contacted.

Elchibey, a 38-year-old former dissident elected a year ago with more than 80% of the vote, made no public statement Friday. His supporters said he had fled because he feared for his life and felt that to remain in Baku would be to plunge Azerbaijan into a full-scale civil war.

“In order to prevent bloodshed and save his own life, he was forced to leave,” said Ibragim Ibragimov, a leader of Elchibey’s party, the Azerbaijan Popular Front.

A senior diplomat based in Baku said Elchibey fled after learning of an assassination plot against him.

“Through our channels . . . we confirmed that there was a plan to at least harm him,” the diplomat said.

According to some reports, Elchibey told Aliyev that he was willing to come back to Baku right away, but aides said he had no such immediate plans.

If Elchibey gives up the presidency, another Baku diplomat said, Russia and Iran will benefit most because Aliyev has closer ties to those countries. The Azerbaijani president, on the other hand, was unabashedly pro-Western and also forged close ties between Azerbaijan and Turkey. His policy was to open up Azerbaijan to Western business interests and bring Azerbaijan into the European political arena, the diplomat said.

A statement from the Turkish Embassy in Baku declared that Turkey could not accept efforts to force out an elected president. The U.S. State Department also supported Elchibey, saying he remains the democratically elected president and urging all factions to resolve the conflict lawfully.

Elchibey’s nighttime flight from the capital climaxed a political drama that has been unpredictable and bewildering even by the wild standards of the Caucasus region.

It pitted a dissident-turned-president against a Politburo hard-liner-turned-democrat and a wool merchant-turned-rebel army commander in a battle over the oil-rich republic of 7 million people.

The rebel commander, Surat Guseinov, now controls roughly a quarter of Azerbaijani territory. By Friday, his troops were within 30 miles of Baku. Between 7,000 and 10,000 men loyal to Guseinov are blocking the three main roads leading out of the port city to the north, south and west, according to the Habar News Agency. The Caspian Sea lies to the east.

Guseinov had threatened to attack this city of 1.5 million Thursday night unless Elchibey resigned, but extended that ultimatum until Friday evening, Aliyev told Parliament.

Elchibey’s inner circle had been planning a counteroffensive, but Thursday evening the president was informed that top army commanders had met and resolved not to intervene, lawmakers were told. That decision left Elchibey powerless to defend the capital, and with no choice but to leave, his backers said.

Aliyev told Parliament that Elchibey had two planes waiting at the Baku airport, one ready to fly to Istanbul, Turkey, and the other to his home region of Nakhichevan, a wedge of Azerbaijani territory separated by Armenia and also bordering Iran and a sliver of Turkey.

Elchibey’s departure represents Guseinov’s final revenge. The 31-year-old head of Azerbaijan’s largest wool concern was formerly the president’s special commander in the war-torn enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, whose Armenian residents, aided by Armenia, now have the upper hand in a five-year war with Azerbaijan. Elchibey fired Guseinov in February, blaming him for heavy losses and calling the former war hero a traitor.

Earlier this month, Guseinov retaliated by seizing a former Soviet army base in Gyandzha, Azerbaijan’s second-largest city. Soviet weaponry, reportedly supplemented by a large purchase from Russian forces, put Guseinov in control of a powerful arsenal that includes six SU-25 bombers, 36 tanks and four Grad missile launchers, according to local reports. At least 74 people were killed in the battle.

As his army swelled with defectors from the national army, Guseinov demanded and won the resignation of the prime minister, the speaker of Parliament and, on Thursday, the ministers of defense, interior and security.

In desperation, Elchibey the democrat turned to the 70-year-old Aliyev, who once served in Stalin’s secret police and headed Azerbaijan’s KGB and then its Communist Party before being named to the Soviet Politburo by Leonid I. Brezhnev. Then-Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev forced Aliyev to resign in 1987.

On Tuesday, Elchibey warned Parliament that the country stood on the brink of civil war and asked lawmakers to name Aliyev chairman of the Parliament, a post with nearly equal powers to his own.

Aliyev promised to seek a peaceful solution with Guseinov, with whom he has been negotiating. Critics suggested Friday that Aliyev, who was ineligible to run for president because of a law barring candidates older than 65, had been in close contact with Guseinov all along.

Aliyev, in his appearance in Parliament Friday, stressed that he still recognizes Elchibey as the legitimate elected president, but scolded him for disappearing into the night.

“The sudden departure of the president and the ultimatum of Surat Guseinov created panic in the republic, and I was forced to take responsibility upon myself and take power to rule until the circumstances of the departure of the president are clear,” he said.

Late Friday night, there were unconfirmed reports that Aliyev was headed to Gyandzha to negotiate with Guseinov.

Despite the political chaos and military threat to Baku, the city was placid Friday. Several strollers in a downtown park said they were disappointed in Elchibey.

“He should have stood as a democrat to the end,” said Yashar Jhabrilev, a restaurant manager, who said that though he understood the reluctance to shed blood, Elchibey had shown himself to be without character, lacking in will.