Chechen rebel commanders were holding talks yesterday in the Russian capital with Russian officials, according to a prominent pro-Russian Chechen.
Mr Malik Saidullayev, a Moscow businessman who heads the pro-Russian State Council of Chechnya, said four commanders had flown to Moscow last Sunday for talks which would help to end four months of fighting in the breakaway region.
"We are trying to bring the commanders on to the side of the State Council to avoid further bloodshed among the population, end the war and start a political dialogue," Mr Saidullayev said.
The rebel leaders at the talks were among the "best-known and most authoritative field commanders", he said, but he did not name them.
According to Mr Saidullayev the talks began yesterday and were moving ahead slowly. He and the commanders hoped to give a news conference at the end of their stay in Moscow.
Members of Russia's security forces attended the talks, he said, but gave no further details. "Much depends on the outcome of these talks . . . But I am more than confident that their final result will be a good one".
The State Council is made up of Chechens who support Moscow's continued rule of their north Caucasus homeland and who oppose the separatist administration of the beleaguered President Aslan Maskhadov.
The State Council existed during the last Chechen war in 199496 but was disbanded after a truce paved the way for elections which brought Mr Maskhadov to power.
Moscow revived the council last October, soon after Russian troops again entered Chechnya with orders to crush gangs of Islamic militants accused of bomb attacks and other crimes in Russian cities and towns.
Mr Saidullayev said the council had recently helped to broker agreements between Moscow and the rebels, allowing for the peaceful handover of several Chechen towns to Russian forces.
Moscow is under growing Western pressure to halt its campaign and to start peace talks. Russia says it is committed to a political resolution of the crisis but maintains that it has no reliable partners inside Chechnya to talk to. It says Mr Maskhadov is too weak and has shown himself unable to control the rebel commanders.
Russia's Emergencies Minister met a representative of Mr Maskhadov last month briefly, but both sides said the only item on the agenda was how to set up corridors for civilians to escape the fighting.
The Russian military has said it is in contact with some rebel commanders who control certain areas in the region and are not directly involved in the war. But Russia has so far made no official comment on the talks described by Mr Saidullayev.
Chechnya is home to many armed groups, several of whose leaders have co-operated with Russia at various times in the past. But the main commanders leading the separatist forces are seen as unlikely to switch their allegiance suddenly.
Previous Russian attempts to set up loyalist governments in Chechnya have failed, and Mr Saidullayev and his council are thought to have limited influence inside the breakaway region.
Interfax news agency meanwhile said that warplanes carried out more than 180 sorties over the past 24 hours, killing an estimated 150 rebels in the capital, Grozny, and in the Argun and Vedeno gorges.
But the Chechen fighters were putting up fierce resistance, and Interfax said that about 2,500 of them were believed to be still in the capital.
Paratroop units strengthened positions on the heights over the Argun gorge. More than 60 per cent of southern mountainous regions are under Moscow control, according to ITAR-TASS news agency.