Tentative Pact Reached on End to Chechen War : Caucasus: The accord covers only military aspects of a peace settlement, includes demand for rebel leader’s ‘extradition.’

GROZNY, Russia — Spurred by the six-day siege by Chechen separatists of a Russian city, negotiators reached tentative agreement early today on a plan to stop the war in Chechnya, disarm the separatists and withdraw most Russian troops from the Muslim republic.

The accord, signed by Russian and Chechen officials after three days of talks in the Chechen capital, covers only the military aspects of a peace settlement and would not take effect until political questions, including Chechnya’s degree of independence from Moscow, are resolved. The agreement includes a startling yet ambiguous concession by Chechen leaders to help search for the rebels involved in the raid on the Russian city of Budennovsk.

The intensity of the latest round, which lasted from 10 a.m. Wednesday until just after midnight, indicated that negotiations were moving with urgency and high-level attention on both sides. The talks were to resume later this morning.

People throughout Chechnya, especially in the mountains where fighting had raged until a temporary cease-fire took hold this week, said they had high hopes that this effort would succeed where previous negotiations during the 6-month-old conflict had failed.

Russia sent tens of thousands of troops to the tiny southern republic in December to crush a 3-year-old independence movement led by Chechen President Dzhokar M. Dudayev. After putting up surprising resistance, the several thousand Chechen fighters retreated from their capital in January, the plains last spring and all but a few mountain strongholds this month. An estimated 20,000 people have been killed.

The talks and a temporary cease-fire were points won by Chechen guerrilla leader Shamil Basayev in exchange for the freedom of more than 1,000 hostages held by his commandos in the bloody siege of Budennovsk, the Chechens’ first strike into Russia proper. Basayev and 72 other guerrillas were also given safe conduct for a 200-mile bus journey back to Chechnya’s southern mountains, where he vanished into the darkness Monday night.

Gen. Anatoly S. Kulikov, commander of Russian forces in Chechnya, stunned the Chechen side and the rest of his own government Wednesday by demanding the surrender of Basayev and his men to face criminal charges for the deaths of more than 100 people in the raid. “We will not sit at the negotiating table with those who connive with terrorists,” Kulikov told reporters in a midday break in the talks, threatening to call off the cease-fire if Basayev was not “extradited.”

Faced with a breakdown of the talks, the Chechen side, led by Dudayev’s chief prosecutor and his military chief of staff, made a surprising concession. Denouncing “all acts of terrorism,” it pledged “to assist the Russian side in the search and arrest” of the wanted men, although it stopped short of saying Basayev would be handed over.

Gen. Aslan Maskhadov, the Chechen chief of staff, refused to answer questions about that part of the agreement.

Asked how he planned to capture Basayev, the most popular and apparently most powerful Chechen commander, Chechen prosecutor Usman Imayev, said: “Today, we are talking about a peaceful settlement in Chechnya. This is a purely technical matter.”

Both sides have a strong stake in a settlement.

The Chechens, all but defeated, are apparently eager to have the war end on the heels of Basayev’s surprise strike into Russia, with whatever concessions they can win.

The accord sets up an observer commission representing the two opposing armies, the Russian government, the Russian-installed administration in Grozny, village elders, Islamic religious leaders and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which is sponsoring the peace talks.

The commission would oversee the following steps:

* A permanent cease-fire, including a cessation of terrorism and sabotage.

* An exchange of maps showing deployment of forces and minefields.

* Swaps of all war prisoners within one week and an exchange of lists of all people detained during the war and missing in action.

* Separation of forces by at least 1.2 miles between battle lines.

* A stage-by-stage disarmament of Chechen regular fighters, militia units and individuals, accompanied by a phased withdrawal of most Russian troops. The Russian army would be allowed to keep two brigades and the Interior Ministry one brigade in Chechnya. Kulikov said an Interior brigade is 2,500 to 6,000 soldiers. In each village, a special defense unit of up to 30 Chechens appointed by the council of elders would be allowed to keep their weapons until the creation of a police force.