Armenians Ussr

Soviet Armenians on Saturday accused Azerbaijanis, their enemies in a bitter ethnic feud, of undertaking a cruel campaign to depopulate by force an area of Azerbaijan that has been peopled by Armenians for more than 1,500 years. In the hilly region of Nagorno-Karabakh, 1,500 Armenians were allegedly uprooted at gunpoint from their homes in the Gadrut district by Azerbaijani police and deported to Goris in Armenia proper, Mikit Kazaryan of the Armenian government mission in Moscow charged.

Armenians in the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh declared themselves a Soviet republic on Monday in a bid for separation from Azerbaijan--and possibly for complete independence. The disputed area is populated mostly by ethnic Armenians, but it is located within Azerbaijan. Centuries-old tensions between mostly Christian Armenia and Muslim Azerbaijan broke into violence over control of Nagorno-Karabakh three years ago, and hundreds have died in sporadic fighting.

State Department officials have cautioned service agencies that 3,400 Soviet Armenian immigrants expected to settle in Los Angeles between now and October may find it more difficult to gain refugee status than previous immigrants and will receive less government assistance when they arrive.

Soviet Armenians on Saturday accused Azerbaijanis, their enemies in a bitter ethnic feud, of undertaking a cruel campaign to depopulate by force an area of Azerbaijan that has been peopled by Armenians for more than 1,500 years. In the hilly region of Nagorno-Karabakh, 1,500 Armenians were allegedly uprooted at gunpoint from their homes in the Gadrut district by Azerbaijani police and deported to Goris in Armenia proper, Mikit Kazaryan of the Armenian government mission in Moscow charged.

Refugee resettlement efforts in Southern California are about to be overwhelmed by thousands of Jews and Armenians who are backed up in Italy and the Soviet Union waiting for permission to enter the United States. "There is just not enough money and services to serve these people in an expeditious way," said Bruce Whipple, director of the Los Angeles office of the nonprofit International Rescue Committee, which helps find jobs, housing and language training for refugees.

The recent fighting between Armenians and Azerbaijanis in the Soviet Caucasus "is not based on religious differences," according to a joint statement issued this week by Los Angeles-area Muslim and Armenian Christian leaders seeking to avert local disharmony. Despite the predominant Muslim faith of Azerbaijanis and Christian faith of Armenians, the crisis is based on a decades-old territorial struggle, political mistakes and injustices, the statement said.

Hundreds of thousands of Armenians from throughout the Transcaucasian republic and abroad observed an official day of mourning Tuesday to mark the 1915 massacre of more than 1 million Armenians by Turks.

Armenian nationalist gunmen took a Soviet guard detachment hostage after a fierce fight on the Turkish border. The Armenian news agency Armenpress said the newly elected 259-seat Parliament in Yerevan interrupted proceedings to send a group to try to secure the release of the soldiers and the return of their weapons. Separately, an explosion apparently set off by an Azerbaijani militant killed four people and wounded 10 on a passenger train near the Black Sea.

Armenians flew their republic's flag and wore black ribbons Tuesday to mourn 24 people killed in clashes between Soviet troops and militants, an Armenian journalist said. Streets were quiet in the southern republic's capital of Yerevan on Tuesday after two days of clashes between Armenian militants and Soviet troops, said Bela Avitisyan, an editor of the official Armenian news agency Armenpress.

Soviet troops patrolling Armenia were ambushed by militants inside a train station and fired back, killing six of the assailants, official media reported Sunday. The clash is certain to inflame passions in the Caucasus as President Mikhail S. Gorbachev prepares to leave the country. According to the Tass news agency, Interior Ministry troops escorting a passenger train on the 120-mile-long journey from Kafan to Yerevan, Armenia's capital, were attacked by 15 gunmen in the capital's main station.

Fighting widened Tuesday in the strife-torn Soviet Caucasus as troops loyal to Moscow seized three more Armenian villages and assaulted two others by helicopter, local officials said. Armenia's leader said the Kremlin is out to overthrow him, but a Soviet general called him a liar. Despite claims from Kremlin leaders all the way up to President Mikhail S.

Hundreds of demonstrators clashed with police Sunday outside the Soviet Consulate in Sydney as they protested the killings of 36 Armenians last week in the Soviet republic of Azerbaijan. The protesters burned a Soviet flag and threw paint at the consulate after delegates from the Armenian Youth Federation were refused a meeting with the Soviet consul general, Australian Associated Press reported.

Tens of thousands of Armenians flowed through the streets of their capital on Saturday, mourning victims of violence against their countrymen in neighboring Azerbaijan that their president called a premeditated pogrom against peaceful civilians by Kremlin troops. "They died for their homeland, and thus they will live forever," Galstyan Ambartsyum, the mayor of Yerevan, told a crowd gathered in Freedom Square, according to the Armenpress news service.

Armenian officials accused the Kremlin on Thursday of throwing its armed might behind their Azerbaijani foes in the worst flare-up of the ethnic enmity between the two peoples in months--attacks on two villages this week that left 36 Armenians reported dead. "This is a new stage, the stage of war," Seda Vermisheva, an Armenian writer and member of the Armenian Parliament, told a news conference at the Armenian mission in Moscow.

The Soviet republic of Armenia accused Soviet and Azerbaijani troops of killing at least 22 people Tuesday when they stormed a village near the disputed southern territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. A spokesman for the Armenian National Movement said the troops surrounded the village of Getashen in Azerbaijan, which is populated by about 3,000 Armenians.

President Mikhail S. Gorbachev moved personally Wednesday to halt mounting violence by armed bands in Armenia by ordering them disbanded and authorizing the police and KGB to seize their weapons if they are not surrendered.

Armenians in the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh declared themselves a Soviet republic on Monday in a bid for separation from Azerbaijan--and possibly for complete independence. The disputed area is populated mostly by ethnic Armenians, but it is located within Azerbaijan. Centuries-old tensions between mostly Christian Armenia and Muslim Azerbaijan broke into violence over control of Nagorno-Karabakh three years ago, and hundreds have died in sporadic fighting.

Hundreds of demonstrators clashed with police Sunday outside the Soviet Consulate in Sydney as they protested the killings of 36 Armenians last week in the Soviet republic of Azerbaijan. The protesters burned a Soviet flag and threw paint at the consulate after delegates from the Armenian Youth Federation were refused a meeting with the Soviet consul general, Australian Associated Press reported.

Armenian nationalist gunmen took a Soviet guard detachment hostage after a fierce fight on the Turkish border. The Armenian news agency Armenpress said the newly elected 259-seat Parliament in Yerevan interrupted proceedings to send a group to try to secure the release of the soldiers and the return of their weapons. Separately, an explosion apparently set off by an Azerbaijani militant killed four people and wounded 10 on a passenger train near the Black Sea.

Armenian militants ambushed a convoy of vehicles in a disputed region of Azerbaijan, killing three people and wounding 24 in an ensuing gunfight with the convoy's Soviet troop escort, the official Tass news agency said Thursday. President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, informed of the attack while presiding over the 28th Communist Party Congress in Moscow, told delegates that ethnic bloodshed in the region must come to an end.