Lebed Leaves Chechnya Without Political Settlement

Peace moves in Chechnya were put on hold Sunday as Moscow’s envoy, Alexander I. Lebed, flew home without the political settlement he had hoped to reach during weekend negotiations in the separatist republic.

Russia’s local army commander, complaining that the Chechens were violating a truce, canceled separate talks.

But Lebed, the driving force behind the latest attempt to end more than 20 months of war, insisted that the “temporary stoppage” in political talks--a delay he said was necessary to clear up legal questions--does not mean that the mutual distrust between the sides is putting the peace process at risk.

“The peace process is in motion,” he said. “Joint patrols are working, local commanders have started to withdraw troops, and, on the 29th, the real withdrawal will begin.”

But a hitch in parallel truce talks indicated that it will be far from easy to allay the suspicions of the military. On Sunday, Lt. Gen. Vyacheslav Tikhomirov, the Russian commander in the region and a grudging supporter of the peace process, called off a meeting with his Chechen counterpart, Aslan Maskhadov.

Angry at a Saturday violation of the 2-day-old cease-fire--in which Chechen fighters surrounded and disarmed 58 Russian servicemen in Chechnya’s capital, Grozny--Tikhomirov said he would not meet Maskhadov until the missing weapons were returned. “I am not going to play cat and mouse,” he said angrily.

Chechen leaders have repeatedly apologized for the Saturday incident, saying a “rogue” group of fighters was responsible, and had been caught and punished and that the weapons had already been returned to the Russians.

Maskhadov said he was disappointed at Tikhomirov’s intransigence.

“It’s very bad that Gen. Tikhomirov and others connect negotiations with provocations like this. . . . There have been provocations, and there will be more. But that shouldn’t disrupt the meeting of Tikhomirov and Maskhadov,” the Chechen commander told Ekho Moskvy radio.

Russian officers in Grozny said they were halting the withdrawal of troops there, which was scheduled to begin Sunday, as a result of the incident, according to the Interfax news agency. But Russian troops did pull back as promised from Shatoi, in southern Chechnya, and Grozny remained relatively calm.

Lebed urged the Chechens to be “sensible and patient.”

“A proverb goes that a war is unleashed by one fool and cannot be stopped by dozens of wise men,” he said in an appeal circulated in Grozny on Sunday.

The next step in converting the cease-fire--a first move toward peace that came into effect at noon Friday--into a full political settlement must be taken in Moscow, where politicians are no less suspicious of Lebed’s peace moves than are military bosses in Grozny.

All previous truces have collapsed before a way was found to define Chechnya’s political status in a way that reconciles the separatists’ wish for independence with Russia’s wish to keep the southern republic inside its borders.

Lebed and Maskhadov say they have worked out a draft. But Maskhadov said they both agreed to consult their bosses and iron out all legal problems beforehand rather than rush into a half-baked deal.

Lebed said he wants to show his work to President Boris N. Yeltsin and Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin. The Russian envoy added that he hopes to return to Chechnya soon.

Lebed has made powerful enemies in Moscow since being appointed peacemaker in Chechnya two weeks ago, and after making a blunt demand that Interior Minister Anatoly S. Kulikov be fired--a wish that was not granted. He has also suggested that many Russian leaders are profiting from the war and do not want it to end.

But the retired general’s straightforwardness has won the approval and respect of Chechen negotiators--and aroused their fears that Lebed could be undermined by his enemies in Moscow, plunging the region back into war.

An earlier peace-minded Russian negotiator, Lt. Gen. Anatoly Romanov, was seriously injured in a mine explosion in Grozny last summer and has remained in a coma since. Russians blame the Chechens for the attack, and the rebels believe it was carried out by Russian special services.

“This time, there is the certainty that negotiations will be successful if Security Council Secretary Alexander Lebed can stop the forces that are in favor of war,” Maskhadov said. “But if anything happens to Lebed, there will be more fighting in Chechnya. What I fear most is that Lebed will suffer the same fate as Gen. Romanov.”