Nagorno Karabakh

SAATLI, Azerbaijan - They are ghostly figures, long forgotten by the world, more than 570,000 refugees living in railroad boxcars, snake-infested holes in the ground, mud huts and abandoned buildings. Once, the world cared deeply for them. That was nearly 10 years ago when the Soviet Union was freshly dissolved and embers from a war between the newly independent states of Azerbaijan and Armenia threatened to raise uncontrollable flames from the ashes of the Cold War. But the fight for a mountainous sliver of land called Nagorno-Karabakh ended with an Armenian victory and a cease-fire in 1994.

Welfare ImagesUsually I read Ben Wattenberg's column with the expectation of encountering a fresh, informed and reasoned view of issues. Sadly, in the Aug. 12 column dealing with the Clinton budget he did not disappoint me until the end when he dealt with "counterproductive entitlements."We have created a growing dependency class. It is destroying families, blighting communities and souring the county, he said.The fact is that during 50 years of getting to know and serve people receiving public welfare, I have never heard one admit to satisfaction with their status.

LOS ANGELES -- The FBI agent told him there would be no turning back and no guarantee of asylum, but Arsen Djavadian felt he had no choice. The Soviet diver fled the Goodwill Games in Seattle with the help of a stranger, then hid out in Hollywood with a boyhood friend from his native Armenia.Until last weekend, when he received employment authorization, Djavadian (Ja-VAD-ee-an) was afraid to tell his story for fear that he would be sent back to the Soviet Union.Djavadian's defection was not without cost.

MOSCOW -- Ethnic fighting flared in a southwestern splinter of the former Soviet Union yesterday, while ongoing battles brought dozens of new deaths in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, where an Afghanistan War hero was dispatched by Russia to withdraw the last of the Soviet troops.In the breakaway section of the former Soviet republic of Moldova, clashes between separatists and police left four dead and 15 people injured, according to reports from the region, which is near the Romanian border.

In his letter "The U.S. should back off its criticism of Azerbaijan's handling of the Safarov case" (Sept. 10), Emil Israfilbek displays very concerning signs of lack of compassion and understanding for human rights, by writing that he is unable to understand why Armenians would be (rightfully) insulted by the Hungarian government's decision to extradite convicted murderer Ramil Safarov back to his home country after having served a mere fraction of his sentence, despite international condemnation of the event.

WASHINGTON -- It's a dangerous neighborhood.To the northwest is Georgia, just recovering from a civil war; to the west, Turkey and Armenia, former bitter foes, and to the south, Islamic fundamentalist Iran. Further south, across parts of Iran and Turkey, lies Iraq.Nagorno-Karabakh is the scene of ethnic and territorial carnage in a region steeped in conflict and offering the potential for more.That helps explain the growing international push to halt the fighting in the mountainous enclave largely populated by Christian Armenians but under the authority of Muslim Azerbaijan.

WASHINGTON - The presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan told President Bush yesterday that they have made substantial progress in talks aimed at ending more than 12 years of ethnic conflict over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, senior U.S. officials said. "We were surprised at how far they came," one official said in reference to negotiations last week in Key West, Fla., between Armenian President Robert Kocharyan and Azerbaijani President Heydar A. Aliyev. The official said Bush encouraged Kocharyan and Aliyev during separate meetings in the Oval Office to "keep at the process."

A HUGE POLITICAL scandal in Moscow involving secret military shipments of $1 billion worth of arms to Armenia has ripple effects that reach all the way to America's shores. But so far the Clinton administration is shortsightedly looking the other way.The story has all the ingredients of a Cold War spy thriller, except that the Cold War has been replaced by a new U.S.-Russian competition over the world's most important source of new oil. The oil is located in the Caspian basin, which sits above Iran and just northeast of Turkey.

MOSCOW -- Azerbaijan accused Armenia yesterday of launching a surprise invasion of its territory with the aid of units of the former Soviet army, only two days after a call for an immediate cease-fire, but officials in Armenia and Moscow flatly denied the accusation.President Ayaz Mutalibov and other Azerbaijani leaders, meeting in emergency session in Baku, said the "direct aggression" had pushed relations between the Transcaucasian neighbors to their most dangerous point in two years.The accusation spotlighted the uncertain future of what had been the world's largest standing military force -- the 3.7 million-member Soviet army -- as it speeds toward what the commander believes will be its inevitable breakup into separate national forces.

Bethlehem Steel Corp. has signed a contract to supply as much as 600,000 tons of steel pipe to a proposed oil and gas pipeline across Turkey and former Soviet republics. The contract could be a boon to the company's Sparrows Point plant since it might supply the bulk of the steel plate used to make the pipes.But before that order can be filled, the pipeline company must gain right-of-way approvals from several countries, including some that have been at war with each other.The nation's No. 2 steelmaker yesterday said that it signed a contract with Oil Capital Ltd. Inc. to provide pipe for a 3,000-mile pipeline that would stretch from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean.