Special to The New York Times

BAKU, Azerbaijan. Aug. 23 — The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry acknowledged today that Azerbaijani forces had been forced to withdraw from the crucial city of Fizuli in the face of continued Armenian pressure from the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

The loss of Fizuli, which is south of Karabakh and controls roads into southwestern Azerbaijan, is the most recent setback for the oil-producing former Soviet republic and threatens to send more refugees across the Aras River, the frontier between Azerbaijan and Iran.

The total number of Azerbaijanis displaced by the five-year war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh is now approaching one million, according to United Nations officials. A half million Armenians’ have been displaced by the conflict which pits self-determination of minorities against territorial integrity of existing states. The war has left up to 10,000 civilians and soldiers dead.

Peace Efforts Fail

Repeated international efforts to negotiate a settlement have failed, most recently because the Karabakh Armenians have taken advantage of internal political turmoil in Azerbaijan to pursue independence and eventual union with Armenia.

After driving all Azerbaijanis from the territory in 1992 and early 1993, the Karabakh Armenians, openly backed by Armenia despite hardships there caused by an Azerbaijani embargo, began attacks on Azerbaijani territory, creating waves of new refugees.

The first region to fall was Lachin, between Karabakh and Armenia, in May 1992. This was followed last April by the fall of Kelbajar, a finger of Azerbaijan extending between Karabakh and Armenia from the north; its capture in effect stitched Karabakh to Armenia from north to south.

That also resulted in the first international condemnation of Armenian aggression against Azerbaijan, summed up by United Nations Resolution 822, which demanded an immediate Armenian withdrawal.

Campaign of Depopulation

Rather than comply, however, the Armenians of Karabakh continued forcibly depopulating areas of Azerbaijan to the north, east and now south of the territory.

Despite promises made by the political leadership in the Karabakh capital, Stepanakert, to abide by a series of internationally brokered cease-fires in June and July, the military leadership of Karabakh has continued the campaign. In July, Armenian forces forced out the defenders of Agdam, Azerbaijan, looting and burning the city. That created 100,000 more refugees.

Officials in Armenia and Karabakh continue to deny that their forces ever entered Agdam. According to them, Armenian forces have not entered Fizuli either, but have remained on the high ground around the strategic town.

Fizuli, a city of some 50,000 residents in normal times but reduced to a ghost town before its fall, controls access to a swath of southwestern Azerbaijan with about 300,000 residents. The city was virtually surrounded by Armenian forces over the last month. Fighting between the Armenians and the poorly equipped Azerbaijani defenders led to the evacuation of civilians last month.

‘Nightmares About Situation’

“As an official of the United Nations, I can say that we are doing all we can,” said Mahoud al-Said, the representative in Azerbaijan of the United Nations Secretary General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali. “As a human being, though, I have nightmares about the situation we are currently facing.”

Mr. Said and a group of foreign diplomats toured the stricken region last week and were shot at on two occasions by Armenian forces. One attack was near Fizuli and the other near Zengelan — which was controlled not by forces from Karabakh but by the Armenian Army.

The group described regional centers and smaller towns emptied of people and tens of thousands of refugees gathered in fields and along roads. A Western diplomat in the group described defenses as nil.

“It is not a matter of whether the Armenians can take the region, but when,” the diplomat said.

Pro-Iranian Is Ousted

BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug. 23 (AP) – Demonstrators ousted a pro-Iranian warlord today from the capital of a “republic” he had proclaimed in southern Azerbaijan, Acting President Heydar Aliyev said.

Hospitals reportedly were inundated with casualties from the fighting between supporters and opponents of Alikram Gumbatov, a retired Army colonel who had declared the Talysh-Mugan Autonomous Republic.

Mr. Aliyev said in a television speech that Mr. Gumbatov had fled Lenkoran, a city of 126,000 on the Caspian Sea about 130 miles south of Baku, the capital. His whereabouts were unknown.

An estimated 10,000 protesters gathered over the weekend outside Mr. Gumbatov’s headquarters in Lenkoran to demand his ouster. Mr. Aliyev said Mr. Gumbatov’s gunmen opened fire on the crowd, which stormed the building and forced him to flee.

The Azerbaijani Popular Front, a coalition of political parties that organized the protest, said there were many casualties. But neither the Popular Front nor officials in Baku gave a specific toll.

Mr. Gumbatov proclaimed the region a republic within Azerbaijan on Aug. 7. Although he is a former Communist Party official, he reportedly was allied with the Islamic fundamentalist Party of God; most Azerbaijanis are moderate Muslims.

(An Azerbaijani soldier, wounded in fighting in Fizuli, being helped to a helicopter for evacuation to a medical center. Troops were forced to withdraw in the face of Armenian pressure on the strategic town. (photo))

Azerbaijan fears an exodus of refugees after its loss of Fizuli. (photo)

Publication date 08/24/1993

Courtesy of Karabagh Truths platform