BAKU, Azerbaijan — A 75-year old Azerbaijani author who wrote a novel about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict that describes mob violence against Armenians has been stripped of his honorary title and pension by the leader of the oil-rich Caspian Sea nation. President Ilham Aliyev announced the decision late Thursday, accusing Akram Aylisli of "insulting the dignity" of more than a million Azerbaijani refugees. Aylisli's "Stone Dreams" offers a wrenching description of attacks on Armenians in the Azerbaijani capital amid the conflict that erupted in 1988. The Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan and some adjacent territory has been under the control of Armenian troops and local ethnic Armenian forces since the end of the six-year war in 1994. Shootings and other incidents have continued and international efforts to settle the conflict have failed. — AP
