The Deseret News – May 22, 1992
YEREVAN. Armenia (AP) —A UN team arrived in the Armenian capital Friday to gather information on the spreading war between Christian Armenians and Muslims in neighboring Azerbaijan.
Fighting threatened to escalate beyond the two former Soviet republics this week when the conflict spilled over to Nakhichevan, a region tucked inside Armenia but populated by Azerbaijanis.
Azerbaijan has threatened to ask Turkey, Armenia’s historic enemy, to intervene, and Russia has hinted that it would send troops to the region if its Armenian ally is enmeshed in a larger war.
The flare-up followed decisive Armenian victories in Nagorno-Karabakh, a predominantly Armenian region within Azerbaijan, where the fighting first broke out. An estimated 1.500 people have died there and tens of thousands have been driven from their homes.
Border troops of the Commonwealth of Independent States stationed in Nakhichevan were placed on alert and Iran offered to send observers to the Caucasus Mountain region.
“If events continue the way they are, Azerbaijan will apply to Turkey to intervene,” the first deputy chairman of the Azerbaijani parliament Tamerlan Karayev told a news conference in Moscow.
