U.S., Russia Downplay Differences : Diplomacy: Washington envoy’s Moscow trip ends positively after NATO suspends Bosnia strikes.

The United States and Russia crept back from the precipice of a major relationship crisis Friday after a weeklong battle over Balkan policy.

A 24-hour fence-mending trip here by U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott ended on a positive note after the announcement Thursday in Belgrade, the Yugoslav and Serbian capital, that bombardment of Bosnian Serb rebels by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization would be suspended. That removed, at least temporarily, the source of escalating tension between Washington and Moscow.

The reprieve on the Balkan battlefields gave Talbott and Russian Foreign Minister Andrei V. Kozyrev a chance to restate their commitment to a post-Cold War “partnership” and to play down the severity of the political chasm that had been gaping between them.

But both sides acknowledged that U.S.-Russian relations could quickly unravel again unless the current pause in air strikes results in progress toward a negotiated settlement of the Balkan conflict.

Bosnian Serbs have six days to make good on promises to withdraw heavy artillery from a weapons-exclusion zone around Sarajevo and to allow restoration of humanitarian aid corridors into the besieged Bosnian capital.

“There is no ambiguity as to what will happen if the heavy weapons are not withdrawn,” said a senior U.S. official, who discussed Talbott’s three-hour meeting with Kozyrev on the condition that he not be identified.

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The U.S. leadership remains convinced that NATO’s unrelenting bombardment was what finally compelled the Bosnian Serbs to agree to back down, the official said. But he acknowledged that the American view remains at odds with that of the Russian leadership.

“We don’t see it that way,” Kozyrev confirmed to journalists at a news conference a few hours later Friday. “We are against bombardments and hope that they will not wreck the political process.”

But Kozyrev stopped short of warning NATO against resuming punitive actions in the event the Serbs fail to comply with the latest deadline for meeting U.N. Security Council demands.

The main achievement of the talks between the senior diplomats, both said, was their mutual promises to use whatever influence their countries have with the Bosnian factions to convert the current respite into a lasting peace.

“We all have reason to be slightly more hopeful than we’ve been in a long time, although there is still a lot of hard work to do,” Talbott told journalists upon his departure.

Kozyrev, who has been under fire from President Boris N. Yeltsin as well as parliamentary opponents for Russian diplomatic failures in the Balkans, said his country wields “not insignificant influence” over the Serbs and will endeavor to get them to comply with the conditions for a lasting suspension of NATO air power.

However, his extensive allusions to the likelihood of further turbulence between the United States and Russia disclosed some skepticism about the prospects of compelling the Bosnian Serbs into a peaceful solution.

“Difficulties, problems, debates arise and will keep arising in any relations of partnership,” Kozyrev observed on the subject of the Kremlin’s dispute with Washington over the air strikes. “We will work in the spirit of partnership, which presupposes the possibility of arguing, sometimes very sharply on specific issues.”

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Relations between Moscow and Washington had deteriorated into outright acrimony after NATO turned aside Russia’s objections to using force against the Bosnian Serbs, with whom Russians share a Slavic heritage and the Orthodox Christian faith.

Some Russian politicians have made support for the outcast Serbs a major issue in the run-up to parliamentary elections in December.

Russian and American sources acknowledged privately that there had been serious concern on both sides about the recent sharp escalation of rhetoric.

“There was a hairy moment over the past week,” one observer commented. “This could have gone off the rails.”