Mutiny in Tajikistan Apparently Over
Two warlords whose forces had threatened to bring down the government in this impoverished Central Asian country appeared Tuesday to be honoring an agreement to disarm.
The warlords agreed to end their insurgency in the former Soviet republic after President Emamali Rakhmonov, desperate to avoid a civil war, met their demands and fired three top officials Sunday.
The firings will reportedly take effect, however, only if irregular troops disarm and army units pull back to barracks by today.
The warlords, Ibodullo Boimatov and Tajik army Col. Makhmud Khudoberdyev, helped bring Rakhmonov to power in 1992 but had rebelled against corruption in his hard-line Communist government.
Tajik state television said both were honoring the accord. It showed piles of automatic weapons and tanks being driven back to barracks.
Khudoberdyev’s forces had advanced Thursday into the fringes of Dushanbe, the capital, and threatened to plunge the nation of about 6 million bordering Afghanistan and China into a rerun of its 1992 civil war.
Russian news agencies said Rakhmonov spoke by telephone Tuesday with Turkish President Suleyman Demirel and assured him that the mutiny was over.
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