In the last decade we have been involved in a program aiming at efficient syntheses of substituted azoles, azines, and their condensed derivatives utilising functionally substituted nitriles as starting materials '-'). As a part of this program the utility of cyanothioacetamide (1) as starting material for the synthcsis of otherwisc difficultly accessible heterocycles was investigated. In conjunction to this work we investigated the reaction of 1 with the ...