Attacks Cast Pall Over Chechen Peace Prospects

MOSCOW — A wave of terrorist attacks in southern Russia, including the assassination Wednesday of a local official, is casting doubt on the future of the stumbling peace process between Russia and separatist Chechnya.

In a region neighboring Chechnya, unidentified gunmen shot dead the local deputy interior minister, Khamzat Dzeitov, and his driver as they drove a suspected criminal to jail. The prisoner escaped.

Also in the tiny republic of Ingushetia, the Interfax news agency quoted Russian security sources as saying police deactivated two car bombs. Wednesday’s violence follows a spate of bombings in railroad stations and shootings in regions adjacent to Chechnya in the past two weeks.

Undeterred, top negotiators went ahead anyway with talks they had planned in Grozny, the Chechen capital. They issued a statement afterward that the Itar-Tass news agency quoted as saying “the terrorist acts cause alarm for the peace process in the region” and calling on the Russian and Chechen presidents to protect negotiations.

The whole of southern Russia remains volatile and prone to mutual suspicions among various ethnic groups almost a year after a war between Russian troops and Chechen separatists was halted.

Moderates on both sides believe that extremists are now trying to stir up bad feelings to give them a chance to drop peace talks.

Although the Chechens have elected a peacetime president and parliament, the final agreement they seek with a still-resentful Russia has remained elusive.

Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov has been complaining for weeks that peace talks are “at a dead end.”

After Maskhadov, whose military successes as chief of the separatists’ armed forces forced the Kremlin to negotiate a cease-fire in August, went to Saudi Arabia on a Muslim pilgrimage earlier this month, the bombings began: one last week at Armavir and one on Monday at Pyatigorsk. The second explosion killed two people.

Russian Interior Minister Anatoly S. Kulikov told a Monday news conference that two Chechens planted the Pyatigorsk bomb.

Chechen officials quickly countered Kulikov’s accusations.

Maskhadov’s office said Kulikov’s Russian police had indeed detained two Chechen suspects--but hours before the Pyatigorsk blast. The statement blamed Kulikov’s forces for organizing the bombings and then accusing Chechens.