The World - News from May 12, 1989

About 300,000 Armenians massed in Yerevan, capital of Soviet Armenia, to demand action on the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh and freedom for imprisoned nationalists, activists said. The situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, where unrest broke out again recently after four months of calm, was called “tense and even explosive,” activist Martin Martirosian said in a telephone interview after the protest. He said speakers at the demonstration, which was officially condoned, called for a session of the Armenian Parliament to address the status of the Nagorno-Karabakh, a predominantly Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan. The crowd also demanded the “liberation, immediately” of 13 Armenian activists under arrest.