In the wake of one of the worst outbreaks of ethnic violence in modern Soviet history, Mikhail Gorbachev last week moved to confront the crisis in a safely bureaucratic manner. A high-level investigation will be launched to resolve grievances between the neighboring southern republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan that resulted in confrontations claiming at least 34 lives. At the same time, Gorbachev said, any solution must be based on "internationalist" principles. Most Soviet analysts took that remark as a coded warning to Armenians to set aside their nationalist aspirations, specifically, the goal of annexing the Nagorno-Karabakh district of Azerbaijan, which is...
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