Prime Minister and Others Slain in Armenian Siege

Gunmen proclaiming a coup d'etat stormed the Parliament in Armenia's capital city of Yerevan this evening, killing the nation's Prime Minister, Parliament Speaker and other officials before claiming to seize about 50 hostages.

The police sealed off the building, and President Robert Kocharian rushed there to negotiate with the assassins, who said they might release a videotape detailing their demands. Negotiations continued through the night as two armored personnel carriers took up positions on the Parliament grounds. The President directed operations.

[On Thursday morning, the gunmen said they were close to a peaceful solution after talks with President Kocharian, who was handling negotiations at the Parliament building, The Associated Press reported. The gunmen said an agreement had been reached to allow them to make a television broadcast.

[Their leader, Nairi Unanian, told the Russian NTV network in a phone interview that the President had guaranteed the gunmen's security and had said they would be given a fair trial.]

There were conflicting reports on the number of gunmen, from two to five, and their motive was not immediately clear. Nor were there any indications that a coup had actually taken place. An Armenian journalist who was in the chamber at the time said one of the men cried that they had ''come to avenge those who have drunk the blood of the nation.''

A presidential spokesman said the gunmen were mentally unstable terrorists without known political ties. But others said the slogans shouted by the attackers suggested that they were nationalists opposed to peace talks over a tiny enclave of Armenians in neighboring Azerbaijan that has been the focus of Armenian-Azeri war and politics for 11 years.

More than many fragments of the old Soviet Union, tiny Armenia -- with a population of about 3.8 million and about twice the size of Connecticut -- has had an uneasy transition to the post-Communist era.

The struggle with Azerbaijan has kept Armenia in turmoil. Just last year, the President was forced out of office because critics believed that he was making too many concessions in the peace negotiations.

After the shooting today, one of the assailants, speaking to a local television station, said: ''This is a patriotic action. This shake-up is needed for the nation to regain its senses.'' He added that the country ''is in a catastrophic situation, people are hungry, and the Government doesn't offer any way out.''

Accounts of witnesses and a grainy Armenian television tape of the shootings appeared to show that the gunmen, clad in trench coats that hid Kalashnikov automatic rifles, burst into the chamber as three Government officials -- Prime Minister Vazgen Sarkisian, Speaker Karen Demirchian and possibly Finance Minister Levon Barkhudaryan -- were at the rostrum. As people in the chamber fled or ducked for cover, Mr. Sarkisian was repeatedly shot at close range. The gunmen then fired on top Government officials who had been sitting in the front row. Many top officials were apparently present for a question period involving the Prime Minister.

The Armenian television channel A1Plus said eight people died in the attack, including Mr. Sarkisian, Mr. Demirchian, his deputy, Yuri Bakhshian, and the Minister of Operative Management, Leonard Petrosian.

The Health Minister, Gike Nikogosian, was quoted as saying that the Finance Minister and another deputy were probably dead as well, but that could not be confirmed. The number of wounded was also uncertain, but some reports put the number at 50.

About 10 hours after the shooting, according to reports by the A.P., the gunmen released three hostages -- two members of Parliament and a member of the Cabinet -- apparently for medical reasons.

Witnesses said the attack began about 5:15 P.M. (9:15 A.M. EDT). Journalists in the chamber were later ordered outside by one gunman.

The Health Minister, quoted by a Moscow television reporter, described the gunmen as in a state of possession. And the Russian minister for relations with former Soviet states, Leonid V. Drachevsky, said he agreed.

''It looks like a psychiatrist is needed -- professional negotiators from the special services who would calm them down,'' he said on Russian television tonight.

Still, much speculation centered on the likelihood that the killings were related to the bitter territorial dispute between between Armenia and Azerbaijan and the possibility of a peace agreement.

The territory, called Nagorno-Karabakh, is part of Azerbaijan but has been under the rule of Armenian separatists since an ethnic war there in the late 1980's and early 1990's killed 35,000 people.

Nagorno-Karabakh declared independence in 1988, and separatists helped by Armenia drove out Azerbaijan troops. In 1994, a truce was signed, but sporadic fighting has continued.

President Kocharian's predecessor, Levon Ter-Petrosian, won office in 1996 in a suspect election, then tried to consolidate his power by arresting opponents and banning some opposition parties. It was Prime Minister Sarkisian -- then the Defense Minister -- who helped him by sending tanks into the streets to put down post-election protests.

Mr. Ter-Petrosian was forced to step down last year because critics believed that he was making too many concessions in the peace talks.

Mr. Kocharian, a nationalist and Karabakh political leader, appointed Mr. Sarkisian as the Prime Minister, vowed to stiffen Armenia's stance in peace negotiations and pledged to move the nation toward a market economy. But in the minds of many citizens, the reverse has happened: the economy has staggered and peace negotiations have progressed under his rule.

The United States and the United Nations have been deeply involved in talks to settle the dispute, and the United States is reported to have promised Azerbaijan political support and foreign aid in exchange for settling the disagreement.

Azerbaijan's First Deputy Foreign Minister, Khalaf Khalafov, told the Reuters news service tonight that he could not exclude the possibility that the attack was aimed at destabilizing negotiations between the two nations.

Reporters identified the gunman who escorted them from the Parliament as a member of an extreme nationalist party, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, known as Dashnak, whose goals are said to include restoring Armenia's borders to their historic boundaries. Centuries ago, an Armenian empire stretched from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean.

Officials of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation disassociated themselves tonight from the massacre. They said the leader of the gunmen, Mr. Unanian, worked in the party's press office in 1990 but has not been there since.

President Clinton's principal trouble-shooter in the former Soviet Union, Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, was in Yerevan today for consultations on the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute. He left the country about an hour before the shootings and was seen off at the Yerevan airport by the Prime Minister.