Tatarstan Reaches Pact With Moscow, Drops Sovereignty Bid

Tatarstan, an oil-rich republic whose struggle for independence threatened to unravel Russia, has dropped its claim of sovereignty in exchange for a go-ahead from Moscow to manage and trade many of its own resources.

The landmark compromise, published here Thursday, was hailed by leaders on both sides as a model for settling Moscow’s unstable relations with the 88 constituent parts of the giant, ethnically diverse Russian Federation.

Since the Soviet Union collapsed and split into 15 nations at the end of 1991, Russia, the largest of them, has lived under threat of a similar breakup as its regions and republics clamored for more local control.

Until recently, the struggle appeared to be going the locals’ way. Tatarstan--a Volga River republic of 3.6 million people, nearly half of them Muslim, Turkic-speaking Tatars--was one of the boldest, withholding tax revenue from Moscow and controlling the export of nearly one-fifth of its 25-million-ton annual oil output.

A turning point came in December when Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin won a nationwide referendum on a new constitution that strengthens rule from Moscow. Voters also gave unexpected support in parliamentary elections to ultranationalists bent on crushing autonomy movements.

Convinced that it was time for a deal, Tatarstan President Mintimer Shaimiyev spent six weeks negotiating the treaty that he and Yeltsin signed Tuesday.

The treaty recognized both Russia’s constitution and one adopted by Tatarstan’s voters in a 1992 referendum asserting self-rule. But the treaty itself dropped the Tatar leaders’ previous claims of “sovereignty” and separate status. It described the republic as “united” with Russia.

In turn, Russia recognized Tatarstan’s right to manage natural resources and state enterprises on its territory except for “objects of federal ownership” to be defined later. Tatarstan may also conduct foreign trade and exempt its young men from the Russian army draft under a program of alternative civilian service.

The treaty appears to recognize much of the economic control Tatarstan has seized in the last two years while giving Moscow final say over distribution of tax revenue.

“Russia yielded, let’s say, the ambitions of the center to decide everything in Moscow, and will leave to the republic a larger sum of tax revenues,” said Sergei M. Shakhrai, Russia’s nationalities minister.

Vasily N. Likhachev, Tatarstan’s vice president, said that his republic controls, and now expects to keep, 83% of all state-owned property on its territory, including a share of plants that turn out helicopters, strategic bombers and heavy trucks. He said Tatarstan will also press for control of a bigger share of its oil resources.

Shakhrai said the “methodology” of the treaty--settling specific local concerns rather than broad sovereignty demands--could be applied to other rebellious areas within Russia, such as Chechnya, which has declared independence and built its own army, and Kaliningrad, which has declared itself a customs-free zone.

Hard-line nationalists in Moscow and Tatarstan criticized the treaty.

Sergei N. Baburin rose in the Parliament in Moscow to ridicule the fact that “for the first time the state signed a treaty with part of itself.” He said the separate deals Moscow will now have to make with each constituent territory will weaken Russia.

In the republic’s capital, Kazan, where the mighty Tatar state fell to the Russian army in 1552, the nationalist Tatar Public Center called the treaty “a step backward from independence.”

The treaty paves the way for elections next month to add Tatarstan’s deputies to the Parliament already sitting in Moscow. The republic, along with Chechnya, boycotted the December vote.

Ferit Agi of the Tatar-language service of Radio Liberty, based in Munich, Germany, said Tatar leaders felt compelled to sign a treaty with Moscow after Russian nationalists, including one elected from Tatarstan, gained their stronghold in Parliament.

Tatars were also aware of their dependence on Russia for rubles, orders for their military factories and the pipeline through which they ship oil to Hungary.

“Russia had to give a little bit to Tatarstan to help bring some other republics into line,” Agi said. “But Tatarstan knew that Russia could close the pipeline at any time.”

Sergei L. Loiko of The Times’ Moscow Bureau contributed to this report.