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A Gorbachev Deadline on Armenia Issue

A Gorbachev Deadline on Armenia Issue
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September 26, 1989, Section A, Page 3Buy Reprints
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President Mikhail S. Gorbachev warned the leaders of two southern republics today that they have two days to negotiate an end to an extraordinary rail blockade that has paralyzed Armenia.

Mr. Gorbachev, opening the fall session of the Soviet Parliament, said Moscow would intervene if Azerbaijan did not lift the blockade, which has isolated Armenia from crucial supplies.

The blockade, which appears to have at least tacit support from the Azerbaijani authorities, has halted rebuilding in the zone devastated by the Armenian earthquake in December, forced ambulances to cut service because of fuel shortages, and raised tensions in a region that some officials say is close to civil war.

Mr. Gorbachev did not specify what measures could be taken, although other legislators speculated that the military could be deployed to restore rail service.

The ominous situation in the two Caucasus Mountains republics was just the first in a row of crises awaiting the fledgling legislators as they began their second session. Cuts in Military Spending

They then plunged into an expected monthlong dissection of the Government's proposed budget and economic plan for 1990, which include deep cuts in military spending and Government investment in an effort to whittle a severe budget deficit, increased outlays for consumer goods, but little clue to the way out of the country's overall economic mess.

The day of deliberating on civil strife and gloomy economic prospects was lightened by the legislature's struggle to master a new electronic voting scoreboard that replaces seven decades of hand-raising.

After the new vote board failed in its debut this morning, Mr. Gorbachev kept the deputies after work tonight for a lecture and demonstration of the system, which spits out a printout of every legislator's vote at the President's desk.

The recorded vote is a weapon of accountability that many deputies expect to be invaluable in bringing public pressure to bear on the Parliament.

Parliamentary committees are at work a spate of laws that will focus on the economy - including laws on strikes, land ownership and taxation. The session is expected to deal with such core issues of Communist ideology as the limits on private property and the legalizing of alternative political parties. Authorities Seem Impotent

But the situation in Armenia was an unnerving reminder for legislators of the daily emergencies that threaten to interrupt the business of lawmaking, and of the seeming impotence of the central authorities.

Rail workers in Azerbaijan, with the support of the unofficial Azerbaijani Popular Front, have been blocking traffic to Armenia for more than a month in the latest flare-up of the two republics' bitter territorial dispute.

Azerbaijanis, including official journalists and legislators, say Armenians invited the blockade by trying to bomb the railroad lines that cross Armenian territory. Azerbaijani rail supplies an estimated 85 percent of Armenia's goods, according to the Communist Party newspaper Pravda.

Azerbaijanis say the Armenians started the dispute by challenging Azerbaijan's control of a disputed territory, Nagorno-Karabakh, where an Armenian majority has been campaigning to secede and join Armenia.

The contested region is torn by violence despite the presence of thousands of troops. Last week two soldiers were reported killed in a gunfight while trying to disperse a crowd near the Nagorno-Karabakh border.

The rail halt began with a strike called by the Azerbaijani Popular Front to press its claim to the Nagorno-Karabakh area, and when the strike was lifted, rail traffic never resumed.

Residents reached by telephone today in Yerevan, the Armenian capital, said that summer food supplies were dwindling and that gasoline was being reserved for buses and state vehicles.

''Let us agree to give the republican authorities two days to examine the situation, and then, if necessary, concrete measures must be taken,'' Mr. Gorbachev told the legislature.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 3 of the National edition with the headline: A Gorbachev Deadline on Armenia Issue. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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