Word: azerbaijan
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...drive home his point, the fires of defiance and threatened revolution burned brightly throughout the Soviet Union last week. From the southern Caucasus republics of Azerbaijan and Armenia to the Baltic states in the north, ethnic tensions flared and independence movements battled with Communist Party officials. The most troubled spots...
...republic's constitution to give the regional legislature primacy over its national counterpart, enabling Armenia to veto national laws that conflict with its interests. The parliament then defied the Kremlin by voting to include in its budget the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, geographically nestled in the republic of Azerbaijan...
...week's eruption had been building for a month. Early in December demonstrators in Nakhichevan, an autonomous region separated from the rest of the republic by a strip of Armenian territory, formed a human chain along the Iranian border and called for the union of the two parts of Azerbaijan. Two weeks later the Popular Front sent an ultimatum to KGB troops guarding the frontier: if fences and barriers were not removed, the Front would tear them down on Dec. 31. KGB commanders made a few concessions -- some crossing points were opened for those who had business or wished...
Iran, which has been working to improve relations with Moscow since the death of Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini last year, seemed embarrassed by the turmoil. In fact, Khomeini's successor, Hashemi Rafsanjani, may have inadvertently fueled the rise of ethnic nationalism in Soviet Azerbaijan when he stopped off there last June after visiting Moscow. He told large crowds in Baku that bilateral agreements he had just signed would lead to increased tourism and trade between the two Azerbaijani regions...
...Azerbaijan is turning into a permanent crisis for Gorbachev. There have been two years of something approaching civil war over the republic's mostly Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, where more than 120 people have been killed. In Baku, Azerbaijani gangs have systematically terrorized Armenians. Violence has also broken out in the southwestern city of Jalilabad, where two weeks ago mobs took over the local Communist Party headquarters and police station, and are threatening to elect their own leaders...