Gorbachev Gives Militants 2 Added Months to Disarm : Armenia: Moscow extends deadline on crackdown. Move is seen as a diplomatic success and a vote of confidence in new leadership.

MOSCOW — President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, showing confidence in Armenia’s new leadership, tacked an extra two months Saturday onto the deadline he set for illegal militant groups to disarm and disband.

His presidential decree, which expired Thursday, warned that Interior Ministry and Soviet army troops could seize the militants’ arms if they were not turned in voluntarily.

The July 25 decree was aimed mainly at the southern republic of Armenia, where at least 5,000 men have reportedly joined the Armenian National Army and other armed groups sworn to defend their people in conflicts with neighboring Azerbaijan.

The Armenian Parliament rejected Gorbachev’s decree, but its new leader, scholar and former political prisoner Levon Ter-Petrosian, flew to Moscow to appeal to top officials not to enforce the measure, which he said would renew bloodshed in the troubled republic.

Ter-Petrosian announced Thursday that he had managed to persuade the Kremlin to give the new Armenian government a chance to deal with the militant groups itself, and Gorbachev’s extension Saturday confirmed his success.

“Moscow’s decision has brought general satisfaction, because otherwise things might have led to conflicts,” said Ovanes Murazyan, spokesman for the umbrella Armenian All-National Movement that now controls the republic’s Parliament.

Murazyan said the Armenian public interpreted the extension as a diplomatic success and also as a promising sign that Moscow was moving toward recognizing Armenia as a sovereign “equal partner” rather than a subordinate that had to accept its dictates.

Ter-Petrosian, who spent months in Soviet prisons as a top Armenian activist, said he received full respect during his Moscow talks with representatives of the government that had jailed him. He was sworn in as chairman of the Armenian Parliament last weekend.

Armenia, with its largely Christian population, and predominantly Muslim Azerbaijan have been locked for more than two years in a virtual civil war sparked by a territorial dispute over the fertile region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Hundreds have died--some in border conflicts, dozens in ethnic massacres and scores when Soviet troops stormed the Azerbaijani capital of Baku in January to stop pogroms against Armenians and assert Soviet rule.

Ter-Petrosian told reporters that members of the main Armenian militant groups have pledged to submit to the will of the republic’s Parliament. Asked whether that meant they would turn in their arms, he said: “There is still work to be done on that count.”

Some militant leaders have said they would refuse to disarm.

The official Tass news agency, announcing the deadline extension Saturday, said Gorbachev was acceding to requests from republic officials for more time.

It was also clear, however, that the decree has had little effect so far. The Soviet Interior Ministry has reported that only about 1,600 firearms have been turned in.

Murazyan said Saturday it appeared that paramilitary groups that declared loyalty to the Parliament would keep their arms and gain some kind of official status, perhaps as a national guard.

“But those who will not obey the new leadership of the republic will be disarmed,” he said.

Ter-Petrosian told reporters he was working on a possible compromise over Nagorno-Karabakh which could go far to calm the region.

Raids on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border and tension in Nagorno-Karabakh, which is under military rule, continued in recent days despite the presidential decree, the independent Post-Factum news agency reported Saturday.

The agency quoted an official on the panel overseeing Nagorno-Karabakh as declaring that “the region will be finally cleared of militants, separatists and nationalists, no matter what official positions they may hold.”