Talks Seek to End Impasse Over Refugees in Albania : Asylum: About 200 desperate people seeking to leave the hard-line Communist nation remain in foreign embassies.

Delicate negotiations were under way Wednesday with hard-line Communist authorities in Albania over the fate of about 200 desperate refugees holed up in foreign embassies, diplomatic sources said.

Vague reports of progress in the four-day standoff were offset by word that the Albanian government had denied a landing permit for a West German plane loaded with food, beds and medical supplies for the asylum-seekers.

Diplomatic sources said Albanian authorities have agreed to meet with a representative of foreign embassies. In Vienna, an Albanian diplomat said on condition of anonymity that all foreign embassies have been assured that anyone wishing to leave would receive a passport. He indicated that there would be no reprisals.

Armed security guards remained posted outside diplomatic compounds in Tirana, the Albanian capital, but at least two people were allowed to walk safely through the gates of the West German mission Wednesday, according to a Foreign Ministry spokesman in Bonn.

“It’s a very delicate situation,” the official said. “We have 86 people inside now, including some women and children, and our embassy is not equipped to take care of so many.”

Geoffrey McKay, a Vienna-based British company executive, who flew to Bucharest, Romania, from the Albanian capital Wednesday, said the city was calm but that security was tight.

“I noticed more than the usual number of militia around. But Tirana was quiet,” McKay told the British news agency Reuters in Bucharest.

The West German Embassy is believed to be sheltering the most refugees, some of whom rammed through the compound’s gates in two trucks Sunday after anti-government demonstrations in the capital. Dozens also scaled embassy fences, spokesmen said.

Shots were reportedly fired at the asylum-seekers. Diplomats in Tirana reported that at least three people were wounded by the gunfire. The West German Foreign Ministry official in Bonn said the West German Embassy received “reports that the Albanian guards carried away bodies which didn’t move. We don’t know if they were dead or not.”

The Albanian government, led by Ramiz Alia, also said people were wounded, but it gave no figures.

The West Germans said they were forced to take one of the injured to an Albanian hospital Wednesday for lung surgery. The West German Foreign Ministry said Albania was informed that the man was still considered under diplomatic protection.

A doctor flown to Albania on Tuesday was tending the wounded still inside the embassy, the spokesman said, adding that the injuries were not considered life-threatening and consisted mostly of cuts and bruises.

Another Bonn Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hanns Schumacher, said Wednesday night that a plane full of supplies and extra personnel for the beleaguered embassy was still waiting in Bonn after Albanian authorities said it would not be allowed to land in Tirana.

Italy, France, Greece, Hungary and Czechoslovakia also reported refugees in their Tirana embassies.

The European Community was considering a coordinated response to the events in Tirana.

“We have made it clear that no one will leave the embassy against their will,” Schumacher said.

There were conflicting reports that would-be refugees who sought sanctuary in the embassies of Bulgaria, Cuba, Egypt and China have been turned over to Albanian authorities.

A bomb reportedly was hurled into the Cuban Embassy compound Tuesday night in what may have been retaliation for Cuba’s eviction of the asylum-seekers. The official Albanian news agency ATA, monitored by the British Broadcasting Corp. in Vienna, reported no injuries in the bombing, which it said had “direct links with the events of July 2 outside the foreign embassies in the capital.”

Yugoslavia’s Tanjug news agency reported Wednesday that Albania is planning sweeping political changes to quell the unrest. Quoting anonymous sources, Tanjug said the Central Committee of the Albanian Communist Party will meet soon, perhaps today, to discuss changes in political leadership and the national security police.

In Paris, Western diplomats told news agencies that the Albanian government might be on the verge of issuing 10,000 to 15,000 visas and passports.

Freedom to travel is one of the key demands of demonstrators in the isolated Balkan state, which promised some reforms earlier this year after bloodless revolutions toppled all other Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe.

The embassy crisis is similar to mass occupations of West German embassies throughout Eastern Europe last summer by East Germans who eventually managed to part the Iron Curtain.

The embassy occupations sparked grass-roots movements throughout the former East Bloc after Hungary gave thousands of East Germans safe passage west.