MOSCOW : Deadline Approaches

A possible new confrontation looms in Armenia as Thursday’s central government deadline approaches for armed militants in the restive Soviet republics to turn in their weapons.

In issuing the decree last month, President Mikhail Gorbachev said that if the militias failed to disarm voluntarily, their weapons can be confiscated. And the country’s Interior Minister has warned that military force will be used to insure compliance, particularly in Armenia where, along with neighboring Azerbaijan, ethnic violence has been particularly bad.