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UPHEAVAL IN THE EAST: Azerbaijan; Angry Soviet Crowd Attacks What Is Left Of Iran Border Posts
Crowds began tearing down remaining border installations along a stretch of the Soviet frontier with Iran today, but troops patrolling the troubled region in Soviet Azerbaijan did not intervene.
Local journalists said the region, Nakhichevan, remained tense after a week of turmoil. The predominantly Shiite Muslim population is demanding more farmland and freer access to Iranian Shiites across the border.
They said angry crowds had rejected a call by an official delegation on Friday for damaged border posts, barbed wire and other installations to be replaced.
Instead, protesters headed for a stretch of the border today to complete the destruction of frontier posts.
Fears of a Crackdown
''There has been no interference from the militia or other troops,'' said a journalist with the Nakhichevan newspaper Vorota Vostoka. But she said troops in jeeps and armored personnel carriers were patrolling the area and families of border troops were being evacuated, raising fears of a crackdown.
The reports could not be independently confirmed. Azerbaijan, including its capital, Baku, has been closed indefinitely to foreign journalists.
The Popular Front, which is leading the protests, has demanded a meeting next week with Azerbaijani authorities to discuss grievances.
The turmoil along the Iranian border, which erupted on Dec. 31, is the most volatile incident in a wave of ethnic unrest and nationalist fervor sweeping the country.
In the disputed Azerbaijani territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, rival Aremenians and Azerbaijanis have exchanged gunfire in nightly shootouts, local journalists said. A correspondent at a local Armenian newspaper said a renewed rail blockade of the territory's captial, Stepanakert, had sealed off the region.
He said poor weather had also forced a suspension in helicopter shipments of food from Armenia, which disputes Azeribaijan's claim to the predominently Armenian enclave.
Interfax, a publication of Moscow Radio, reported that one person was killed on Thursday in ethnic fighting in the Azerbaijani town of Khanlar and that Interior Ministry troops had been sent to the area. The report could not be independently confirmed.
Increasing separatist sentiment in the once-independent Baltic republics, the deadly rivalry between Armenia and Azerbaijan and unrest in other areas have been forcing Moscow to pay more attention to domestic issues.
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