Tajik Government, Opposition Reportedly Agree on Coalition

MOSCOW — The government and the opposition in the former Soviet republic of Tajikistan reached agreement today on a coalition government to end a bloody political crisis, the Itar-Tass news agency said.

In a report from the Tajik capital of Dushanbe, it said opponents of President Rakhman Nabiyev would take eight of 24 ministries in a new Cabinet, including the Defense Ministry.

Itar-Tass quoted Col. Vyacheslav Zabolotny, head of the Commonwealth of Independent States troops in Dushanbe, as saying the agreement was reached after all-night talks.

Opposition leaders agreed to preserve law and order in the Central Asian state, reopen roads and airports and organize the surrender of weapons to the government, Itar-Tass said.

There was no immediate confirmation of the agreement from the opposition.

The reported agreement came just hours after KGB troops loyal to Nabiyev fired on a crowd of unarmed protesters, killing at least four, witnesses said.

Elsewhere, Azerbaijani forces said they recaptured their stronghold of Shusha in Nagorno-Karabakh, the mostly Christian Armenian region within Muslim Azerbaijan. Armenian officials denied the claim but said fighting continued Sunday.