Chechens and Russians Sign Peace Pact

Russian and Chechen leaders signed a peace pact Sunday proclaiming an end to the 7 1/2-month-old war that shattered both the breakaway southern republic and the democratic image of Russia’s post-Communist authorities.

Both sides hailed the military accord as a breakthrough in ending a bitter conflict that has left 20,000 people dead. But the agreement mostly reiterated terms for a cease-fire, exchange of prisoners and eventual disarmament and withdrawal of forces worked out by negotiators more than a month ago.

The decision to finally deliver a formal settlement after weeks of claiming that the war was virtually over appeared to be an acknowledgment by both Chechen and Russian negotiators that they have hit an impasse in talks aiming to define Chechnya’s political status, the issue at the heart of the deadly dispute.

Russian negotiators even insisted on a footnote being attached to the sheaf of detailed documents signed early Sunday stating that Moscow considers Chechnya’s 1991 proclamation of independence “unconstitutional,” said Sandor Meszaros, an official of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which mediated the peace talks in the ruined Chechen capital of Grozny.

President Boris N. Yeltsin sent federal troops and armor into Chechnya on Dec. 11 to crush the revolt by forces loyal to rebel leader Dzhokar M. Dudayev.

Separate negotiations on the outstanding political issues are to resume Thursday.

“We have now legally confirmed the end of the war in Chechnya,” Usman Imayev, the chief negotiator for Dudayev’s guerrillas, told journalists in Grozny after the two sides signed the peace pact.

Newly appointed Russian Interior Minister Anatoly S. Kulikov also cast the accord as a long-awaited settlement, although he acknowledged that, in the absence of agreement on Chechnya’s political future, there could be attempts by renegade elements to undermine the pact.

“These decisions will probably not be met with delight by everyone in Grozny and in the mountains and in Moscow,” Kulikov, who served as commander of Russian forces in Chechnya for much of the war, said during a news conference broadcast by state-run television. “But we participants in the talks are unanimous: Peace must be paramount.”

Chechen commander Gen. Aslan Maskhadov, seated beside Kulikov at the news conference, said, “In this war, there were no winners.” But he added that the truce would ensure that, “in the future, disputes between Russia and Chechnya will not be resolved by use of force.”

The Russian government’s chief negotiator, Nationalities Minister Vyacheslav A. Mikhailov, described the agreement as “a very important step . . . along the way to peace.”

Political and military observers, however, said that both sides were making a virtue of necessity.

“This result can hardly be called a success. It is rather an awkward face-saving conclusion of talks which both sides knew from the beginning couldn’t resolve some of the most important issues,” said Andrei V. Vasilevsky, vice president of the independent Panorama analytical center.

In an indication that even the military agreement is not on solid ground, the Interfax news agency reported late Sunday night that Dudayev, who is in hiding, told Russia’s Radio Liberty that the pact “can have no legal force.”

“The Russian side resorted to blackmail, threats and physical pressure” to get Chechen negotiators to sign, and prevented them from contacting him for the past several days, he was quoted as saying.

Interfax and the Itar-Tass news agency said the documents signed in Grozny outlined:

* An immediate cease-fire, with special monitoring teams to be made up of military and civilian representatives.

* An exchange of maps showing the location of armed forces, equipment and mines.

* The release of all prisoners within a week.

* A three-stage disarmament of Chechens, beginning with “illegal armed formations” and followed by militia detachments and, finally, civilians.

* A withdrawal of Russian troops, with the exception of one motorized infantry brigade and one Interior Ministry forces brigade.

* A renunciation of terrorism and sabotage.

It was a Chechen guerrilla leader’s storming of the southern Russian town of Budennovsk last month that spurred Moscow to agree to direct negotiations with Dudayev representatives. More than 140 people died in the bloody hostage-taking incident before Russian Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin agreed to open talks with the rebels.