MOSCOW, July 30 -- Russian and rebel negotiators signed a military agreement Sunday calling for a premanent ceasefire, the disarmament of sepratists in Chechnya and the withdrawal of most federal forces from the region. Kremlin and Chechen representatives said their pre-dawn penstrokes put an end to more than seven months of fighting, but accord on the key question of the political status of Chechnya was conspicuously absent from the pact negotiators described. 'The war in Chechnya is ending,' separatist delegation chief Usman Imayev told the Itar-Tass news agency after emerging from the marathon talks in the Chechen capital Grozny. He said the pact 'legally establishes that the war ends and disarmament begins.' Chechen military leader Aslan Maskhadov said the agreement marked a major breakthrough in both the current conflict and the centuries-old tension between Moscow and the independence-minded region. 'For the first time in the history of relations between Russia and Chechnya a decision has been made not to use force to solve any problems that arise,' Maskhadov told a press conference several hours after the signing. Russian delegation head and Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov said the pact was 'a very important step in difficult discussions, I would even say in the struggle to begin the path toward peace, the disarmamnent of illegal armed formations and the restroration of peace on Chechen soil.' Kulikov said the sides agreed to a permanent ceasefire effective immediately and the exchange of all prisoners within a week, offering for the first time an official figure of the amount of suspected rebels held in feared federal 'filtration points' in the area: 1,325.


He said the pact called for the gradual disarmament of Chechen rebel formations and volunteers as well as individuals in the region possessing guns, and for a gradual withdrawal of the majority of Russian forces in the area. Russia will maintain a brigade of army troops and a brigade of Interiore Ministry troops in the region after thew withdrawal, but the size of the remaining military presence was unclear. While the military agreement appeared likely to further chill the already cooling hostilities on the ground in Chechnya, it left room for further discord by failing to dig to the roots of the bad blood between the Kremlin and the rebellious region. Negotiators had signalled accord last week on the fundamental question of Chechen sovereignty, but they dropped their stated bid to forge a political pact after both sides appeared to stick to their mutiually exclusive stances. The Kremlin has insisted on keeping Chechnya within the Russian Federation while the rebels have sought full independence, and the Sunday pact brought the sides no closer to solving the problem that prompted President Boris Yeltsin to order an invasion of the region last December. The negotiators said talks on the political status of Chechnya would continue Thursday among lower-level envoys, but Russian delegation member Arkady Volsky said it would be 'impossible' to hold local elections or determine the political status of Chechnya until after the rebels had fully disarmed. Volsky's statement to Russian television reporter upon his return to Moscow with the other Russian delegates indicated the Kremlin will make complete disarmament a condition to elections and the talks on Chechnya's status, which Moscow says can take place only after the polling slated for this fall. With the sides at odds over the status of Chechnya, Imayev and Kulikov cautioned that the fate of the military agreement signed in Grozny rested not with those who penned it but with more influential Russian and Chechen leaders, who both indicated were plotting to scuttle peace plans. 'Not everybody will meet these decisions with enthusiasm,' Kulikov said in a reference to hawks in Moscow believed to be pushing for a continuation of hostilities. 'There are forces that would like to see this bonfire smoulder, if not burn.' Imayev also said there would be 'pressure' on the separatists to keep fighting, in an apparent reference to Chechen leader Dzhokhar Dudayev and respected commander Shamil Basayev, who have called on the rebels to continue fighting unless Russia offers independence. Basayev forced the beginning of the talks, winning an agreement to high-level negotiations in exchange for the release of hundreds of hostages he and a group of gunmen held in a hospital last month after a bloody raid on a Russian town inwhich more than 100 died. Since Russian tanks and troops rolled into the restive region to put an end to the three-year-old reign of Dudayev last December, several thousand civilians have died as well as an unknown number of rebels and at least 1,800 Russian servicemen Kulikov said Sunday had been killed in the conflict.



While the military agreement appeared likely to further chill the already cooling hostilities on the ground in Chechnya, it left room for further discord by failing to dig to the roots of the bad blood between the Kremlin and the rebellious region. Negotiators had signalled accord last week on the fundamental question of Chechen sovereignty, but they dropped their stated bid to forge a political pact after both sides appeared to stick to their mutiually exclusive stances. The Kremlin has insisted on keeping Chechnya within the Russian Federation while the rebels have sought full independence, and the Sunday pact brought the sides no closer to solving the problem that prompted President Boris Yeltsin to order an invasion of the region last December. The negotiators said talks on the political status of Chechnya would continue Thursday among lower-level envoys, but Russian delegation member Arkady Volsky said it would be 'impossible' to hold local elections or determine the political status of Chechnya until after the rebels had fully disarmed. Volsky's statement to Russian television reporter upon his return to Moscow with the other Russian delegates indicated the Kremlin will make complete disarmament a condition to elections and the talks on Chechnya's status, which Moscow says can take place only after the polling slated for this fall. With the sides at odds over the status of Chechnya, Imayev and Kulikov cautioned that the fate of the military agreement signed in Grozny rested not with those who penned it but with more influential Russian and Chechen leaders, who both indicated were plotting to scuttle peace plans. 'Not everybody will meet these decisions with enthusiasm,' Kulikov said in a reference to hawks in Moscow believed to be pushing for a continuation of hostilities. 'There are forces that would like to see this bonfire smoulder, if not burn.' Imayev also said there would be 'pressure' on the separatists to keep fighting, in an apparent reference to Chechen leader Dzhokhar Dudayev and respected commander Shamil Basayev, who have called on the rebels to continue fighting unless Russia offers independence. Basayev forced the beginning of the talks, winning an agreement to high-level negotiations in exchange for the release of hundreds of hostages he and a group of gunmen held in a hospital last month after a bloody raid on a Russian town in which more than 100 died. Since Russian tanks and troops rolled into the restive region to put an end to the three-year-old reign of Dudayev last December, several thousand civilians have died as well as an unknown number of rebels and at least 1,800 Russian servicemen Kulikov said Sunday had been killed in the conflict.