Word: nagorno-karabakh
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...years of violent clashes. Emerging from the first session, both groups agreed to seek the release of all hostages by March 1 and to establish permanent relations between the two groups. No speedy peace settlement is expected, if only because the Azerbaijanis refused to discuss the future of Nagorno-Karabakh, the center of the dispute. Even so, the multifront meeting illustrates a dramatic shift of power from Moscow into the hands of local nationalists...
...blame Moscow for the continuing tensions, he suggests that some of the bloodshed might have been averted. "Had we had more experience in dealing with ethnic unrest, decisions could have been made months ago," he says. "For example, if Moscow had decided early on to elevate the status of Nagorno-Karabakh from an autonomous region to an autonomous republic, as the Armenians had asked, it might have cooled tensions. It would not have pleased the Azerbaijanis, but they might have been persuaded. Now there is no point in even talking about...
Kupreyev also feels that censorship should have been imposed in the region. "It's not democratic, but the local media are to blame for inciting people," he contends. "The Azerbaijani TV station in Shusha ((a town in Nagorno-Karabakh)) broadcast interviews with Azerbaijani refugees. I heard one commentator say, 'Don't worry, the time will soon come when we'll give you a better house in Stepanakert than you used to have.' We said let's close the station. Soviet television gains nothing from it, and friendship between peoples will gain. But it didn't happen...
...left, people wept and asked us to stay," Kupreyev says. "I wiped away a few tears myself. After all, I became close to these people, even though the Armenians would accuse us of being pro-Azerbaijani and the Azerbaijanis accused us of favoring Armenia. Someone who has not visited Nagorno-Karabakh cannot understand the situation. You mentioned Northern Ireland? The situation has been going on there for more than 20 years now. God forbid it will be the same way here...
...occupying force of some 40,000 from the army, Interior Ministry and KGB. They have found it almost impossible to pacify the people of Azerbaijan, who for two years have been inflamed by a bitter blood feud with neighboring Armenia over control of the mountainous enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. Last week black flags waved from housetops, sirens wailed and ships' horns echoed over Baku harbor as some 800,000 Azerbaijanis thronged the streets, in defiance of emergency regulations, to mourn their hundred or more "martyrs" killed in street clashes with Soviet troops. Among the marchers' signs: a photograph of Mikhail...