Moscow Scrambles to Salvage Faltering Talks on Chechnya

Recognizing that the 5-week-old peace talks with the rebel republic of Chechnya are hopelessly deadlocked, Moscow took a major step backward Wednesday and announced it would accept a limited military accord to end the fighting.

Russian Nationalities Minister Vyacheslav A. Mikhailov said he believes a military accord, covering step-by-step withdrawal of unspecified numbers of Russian troops and disarming the Chechen rebels, will be signed when talks resume Saturday.

But analysts saw the announcement as no more than a diplomatic fig leaf covering the failure of the talks to find a way to end the war in the secessionist Muslim republic. They predicted that full-scale fighting will soon resume.

“Each side is tired of the talks and expects the other to pronounce the talks a failure,” said Dmitri I. Makarov, who writes on ethnic problems for Argumenti i Facti newspaper. Chechens cannot admit the talks are deadlocked because they have run out of military options, he said, while the Russians want to maintain the international perception that they are seeking a peaceful solution to a conflict that has claimed an estimated 20,000 lives, mostly civilian.

Makarov said Russian forces are likely to launch intense offensives aimed at forcing Chechen concessions--or at capturing rebel President Dzhokar M. Dudayev. The Chechen leader has been as intransigent as Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin on the essential issue of Chechnya’s claim to sovereignty.

A breakdown in the talks would be a victory for the Russian army, which has objected to negotiating with “terrorists” and “bandits” at a time when it has the military upper hand. It would also be a damper on the rising political fortunes of Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin, who had agreed to the talks as a condition for ending the hostage crisis that left 150 people dead in southern Russia last month.

The peace talks began June 19 in the Chechen capital of Grozny under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and produced results. The two sides agreed to a cease-fire, exchanged maps of troop deployments and minefields, swapped a number of prisoners of war and exchanged lists of other detainees.

In late June, the sides agreed to hold elections Nov. 5 for a new Chechen government, though details--including whether Dudayev could run--have not been worked out.

After four rounds of talks, punctuated by sporadic guerrilla fighting and atrocities, negotiations stalled last week.

Russia had sought a wider accord that would include both a military and a political settlement, but that proved impossible when the Chechen delegation refused to bow to Moscow’s chief demand--that the republic remain part of the Russian Federation, however autonomous. The rebels also rejected a Russian proposal to have the Moscow-appointed puppet Chechen government resign along with Dudayev, in favor of a temporary coalition that would rule until elections.

On Saturday evening, Dudayev, who remains in hiding, appeared in a broadcast from a rebel Chechen television station and declared, “These negotiations have not resulted in anything positive and are unlikely to do so because they are in the hands of hair-splitters.”

Meanwhile, Chechen rebels have stepped up attacks on Russian “occupiers.” The Russian military, in turn, has reversed its policy of attempting to conceal its losses and has issued frank daily reports on Russian soldiers attacked, maimed and killed by guerrillas. Since July 13, at least 10 soldiers have been killed and 42 wounded, Russian officials said. No comparable figures were available from the Chechens.