Yeltsin Seeks Stronger Commonwealth : Russia: Appeal for closer ties among former Soviet republics is aimed in part at bolstering his political support at home.

President Boris N. Yeltsin, in a move aimed in part at recovering political support at home, called Wednesday for stronger military and economic ties among the former Soviet republics that form the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Yeltsin also met with his council of advisers and heard many of them urge the imposition of “presidential rule” to win a power struggle that is crippling his free-market reforms, his spokesman said.

Russia’s political direction has been in suspense since Friday. Yeltsin stormed out of the Congress of People’s Deputies that day after it took away some executive powers. On Saturday, it canceled a referendum on whether he or Parliament should run the country. The president has given no public indication how he will respond.

The tense uncertainty has spread among Russia’s neighbors, many of whom worry that Yeltsin’s conservative nationalist foes will try to reimpose imperial rule from the Kremlin--or force Yeltsin to do so.

The ascendancy of Russia’s right wing already has inspired a major rebel military offensive in Abkhazia, a Black Sea province seeking to break away from Georgia under Russian army protection. Georgia’s Health Ministry said 163 people were killed and more than 100 homes destroyed in fighting Monday and Tuesday.

Yeltsin sought Wednesday to portray himself to Russians as a strong national leader capable of restoring mutually beneficial ties among former Soviet lands, which have suffered materially from the 1991 collapse of the union and its centralized command economy.

At the same time, he tried to assure the peripheral republics that Moscow’s intentions are benign.

“I am convinced that only through joint efforts by the independent states will it be possible to get through this period of difficulties and trials,” he said in a written appeal to the 10 other Commonwealth heads of state.

Yeltsin urged Commonwealth leaders to coordinate energy, agricultural, industrial, transportation and trade policies within “a single economic space” and to set up a new mechanism for military cooperation to halt ethnic conflicts.

The Commonwealth was set up to foster such cooperation but has foundered on suspicions of some of its members, notably Ukraine, about Moscow’s intentions. Ukraine, Moldova, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan failed to sign a new Commonwealth charter at the group’s last meeting two months ago. Yeltsin on Wednesday called for a major reorganization of the alliance.

“We exclude any role as some kind of ‘big brother,’ ” Russian Foreign Minister Andrei V. Kozyrev told reporters. “I don’t think any magnifying glass will help you find any neo-imperialist designs in this.”

But Dmytro Pavlychoko, chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament’s foreign affairs commission, said in Kiev: “I believe such declarations do not reflect the mood of either Yeltsin or Kozyrev. This move has been provoked by pressure from those forces in the Russian Parliament trying to restore communism.”

Georgian leader Eduard A. Shevardnadze, whose former Soviet republic never joined the Commonwealth, charged that “thousands of Russian citizens--mercenaries and regular army men” were “directly involved” in the Abkhazian rebel offensive, which ended Wednesday in retreat.

Russian troops of the former Soviet Red Army are based in Georgia, but the Russian Foreign Ministry denied that they took part in the fighting.

Yeltsin ignored a call by Shevardnadze to hold peace talks. The Russian leader summoned Kozyrev home from a visit to Finland for an emergency session of his Presidential Council, a panel of civilian advisers dominated by reformers.