"If in accordance with international law some other solution can be found to the problem of peace with the Russians, then we are ready for the necessary negotiations," Zakayev said.

MOSCOW — The foreign minister of the Chechen government in exile, Ahmed Zakayev, said Saturday, July 15, that Chechens are ready to start unconditional peace talks with Russia over independence to bring peace and security to the troubled region.

"If in accordance with international law some other solution can be found to the problem of peace with the Russians... then we are ready for the necessary negotiations," Zakayev wrote in an appeal to the Group of Eight leaders meeting in Saint Petersburg, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"We acknowledge that the continuing of military action and violence will not lead to resolution of the conflict. Therefore we declare that negotiations with Russia should begin without preconditions," Zakayev said in his "manifesto for peace" posted on the government's website.

He said the initiative is modeled after similar one taken by late democratically elected president Aslan Maskhadov, who called for unconditional talks with Moscow, and declared a one-sided one-month-ceasefire for the month of February 2005.

Zakayev, who has been granted asylum in London after a British court rejected an extradition request by Moscow, said the new initiative is designed for the welfare of the Chechens in view of the increasingly barbaric violations of human rights - torture, seductions, illegal imprisonments and terrorist acts.

Zakayev said the goal is to guarantee the security of the Chechen people; international economic aid, free elections and return of refugees.

He also said Russia must pledge that it will not harm Chechen fighters and set up what he called a "truth commission" in which victims' relatives would take part.

Russian Welcome

The head of Russia's FSB secret services, Nikolai Patrushev, welcomed Zakayev's overture, announcing Saturday that Russia is ready to stop hunting Chechen fighters.

In a statement couched in unusually conciliatory language, Patrushev appealed on state television for fighters to "enter negotiations with representatives of the legal authorities" before August 1.

Patrushev promised to "guarantee objective and unprejudiced" treatment for fighters laying down their arms and said that Shamil Basayev's death, announced on July 10, brought "a chance for all who have not yet returned to peaceful life."

"This chance must be used in order to avoid new, senseless victims."

Chechnya, a tiny territory in Russia's Caucasus mountains, declared independence in 1991 during the dying days of the Soviet Union.

Moscow has fought two wars to regain control, leading to the deaths of as many as 100,000 civilians and, according to official figures, 10,000 Russian soldiers, as well as destroying economic infrastructure and the capital city Grozny.

The Chechens won the first conflict in 1994-96, but Russian troops launched a new offensive in 1999 and now largely control the province in tandem with a large force of pro-Russian Chechens, although deadly skirmishes continue.

International human rights watchdogs said in a recent joint statement that rape, torture and extrajudicial executions by Russian troops have become everyday occurrences in Chechnya.

Thousands of Chechens have also been abducted and never seen again.

Human Rights Watch said that the wide-scale "forced disappearance" of Chechens with the full knowledge of Russian authorities is a crime against humanity.