2 Parties Open Talks With Algerian Ruler : North Africa: Third opposition group also will meet. Moves are seen as sign of crackdown’s success.

Two important Algerian opposition parties opened talks Sunday with Algerian President Liamine Zeroual, and a third has accepted his invitation, suggesting that the recent army crackdown on radical Islamic groups has begun to soften the positions of the government’s more moderate foes.

The decision by the Socialist Forces Front, one of the main secular opposition groups, by the former ruling National Liberation Front and by Nahda, a legal Islamic movement, to hold talks in Algeria with the military-backed government also has raised hopes that the country’s 3-year-old civil war can be stopped at the negotiating table. But many hurdles remain.

The reason for that optimism is that the three were among eight opposition parties, including the outlawed Islamic Salvation Front, that signed an accord in January in Rome saying they were willing to negotiate only if the government, among other things, released political prisoners and promised to allow an interim government to take over.

Algerian government officials rejected that proposal and instead launched a major military offensive in the past two weeks against strongholds of the Islamic guerrillas. Estimates of the death toll range from hundreds to more than 2,500, according to Algerian newspapers.

The goal was to break the back of the opposition, create a peaceful climate for elections--which Zeroual has promised by the end of the year--and lure more moderate government foes to the table. An Algerian newspaper said Sunday that Zeroual’s troops may have nearly eliminated the radical Armed Islamic Group, which has claimed responsibility for attacks on civilians and foreigners.

The Algerian army annulled the last round of elections in 1992, leading to the current civil war, which has claimed an estimated 30,000 lives and sent thousands more fleeing to other countries. The Islamic Salvation Front, or FIS, had been on the verge of winning that election.

The decision by the three opposition groups to accept Zeroual’s invitation marked the first public split among the eight Rome signatories. Although Western governments had urged the Algerian government to seriously consider the Rome proposal, it refused.

Instead, Zeroual said he wanted to organize his own elections this year, apparently hoping to co-opt enough of the opposition parties to make the balloting appear democratic. With that goal in mind, Zeroual had issued the invitations to his opponents, and the parties cited a new willingness to compromise on the part of the military-backed government.

“There appear to be favorable indications that the government truly wants to talk,” said Mustapha Bouhadef, secretary general of the Socialist Forces Front.

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The secular party previously had declined invitations to talk with the government. Its president, Hocine Ait Ahmed, who lives in exile in Europe, had signed the Rome accord.

But in a statement, the party said it wants “to set the dynamics of peace in motion and restore hope to the people.” And it said the “deterioration of the political and security situation had reached an intolerable level.”

Islamic opponents of the government had hoped to use the government crackdown on them to overcome their differences and work to overthrow the Algerian regime. But the heavy losses incurred in the government offensive may have stalled that effort.

Reports out of Algeria last week suggested that two key FIS leaders have been moved from prison to house arrest, presumably as preparation for a round of secret talks.

And mixed signals were coming from FIS officials Sunday.

In Sudan, Anouar Haddam, a senior FIS official, promised that the guerrilla war will continue “until the installation of an Islamic state.”

But there were no fighting words from Madani Merzak, the chief of the front’s armed wing. In extracts from a 21-page open letter he wrote to the head of state, which was published by newspapers in Algeria, Merzak demanded that Zeroual “move quickly toward a legal and decisive solution” to the crisis.