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Posted on 09/25/2001 1:40:09 PM PDT by Pericles

Tuesday September 25 9:25 AM ET

Russia, Chechen Rebels Negotiate

By SERGEI VENYAVSKY, Associated Press Writer

ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia (AP) - In the Kremlin's first attempt at peace talks during the two-year war in Chechnya, President Vladimir Putin's envoy headed to southern Russia on Tuesday for negotiations with rebels.

Putin, speaking Monday in a televised address devoted to Russia's response to recent terrorist attacks on the United States, urged Chechen rebels to ``halt all contacts with international terrorists'' and gave them 72 hours to get in touch with Russian authorities for negotiations on disarmament.

Kazantsev, who led the Russian force in Chechnya earlier in the war, said the time limit offered to rebels was ``tight but sufficient.'' Early Tuesday he spoke to reporters in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don and was scheduled to meet with officials in the city of Yessentuki and hold another meeting with the press there, but was not rushing to Chechnya itself.

``President Vladimir Putin has made a humanitarian move, offering ordinary rebels a chance to come out of their havens and give up all their weapons within 72 hours,'' Kazantsev said.

Kazantsev didn't make it clear when and how he was going to meet with rebels. He insisted that if the rebels fail to show up for talks, they must be destroyed.

In the past, Putin dismissed numerous Western calls for peace talks, saying the rebels should be eliminated. Earlier this month, he said for the first time that Moscow might talk to the rebels, but only if they first lay down arms and hand over their leaders - conditions the rebels would be unlikely to accept.

In a reference to Russia's long-held claim that the Chechen rebels are sponsored by international terrorists including Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind of the attacks in the United States, Putin said Monday that ``the events in Chechnya cannot be considered outside the context of the fight with international terrorism.''

Moscow's claims that it is fighting international terrorists in Chechnya have failed to win the sympathy of Western countries, which criticize Russia's military campaign as excessive.

While Moscow claims to have re-established control over Chechnya, its troops are killed daily in rebel assaults and land mine explosions.

At least seven Russian servicemen have died in clashes and land mine explosions staged by rebels throughout Chechnya over the past 24 hours, an official with the pro-Moscow administration said Monday on condition he not be named.

Russian troops retreated from Chechnya after the first, 1994-96 war, which ended in de facto independence for the region. Russian troops returned three years later after fighters based in Chechnya raided a neighboring Russian region and after apartment-house bombings blamed on the rebels killed more than 300 people.

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