MOSCOW, Oct 31: The Kremlin slammed the door on a peaceful answer to the Chechen conflict on Thursday, vowing to “wipe out” elected Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov, once seen as the only guerilla leader Moscow could talk to.

In Chechnya, Russian forces stepped up “special operations”, hunting suspects who could have links to last week’s 58-hour hijack of a Moscow theatre. Troops surrounded refugee camps in neighbouring Ingushetia, along Chechnya’s western border.

“We have to wipe out the movement’s figureheads: Maskhadov, (Shamil) Basayev and (Ruslan) Gelayev,” Sergei Yastrzhembsky, the Kremlin Chechnya spokesman, said at a news conference.

Basayev and Gelayev are two top field commanders believed to be coordinating the bulk of action against Russian troops.

The war in Chechnya, long rumbling on away from the public eye, returned to the political centre stage last week after some 50 armed guerillas seized a packed Moscow theatre, demanding Russia withdraw from the devastated region.

Following the theatre siege, in which at least 119 hostages and 50 guerillas died when Russian troops stormed the building, France and other Western states urged the Kremlin to talk with the Chechens and seek a peace deal similar to one that ended a 1994-96 war.

But echoing President Vladimir Putin’s long-standing rejection of any talks with “terrorists”, Yastrzhembsky said: “Maskhadov can no longer be considered a legitimate representative of this resistance... From the Chechen underground there is no one we are ready to talk to.”

Maskhadov, elected head of the Chechen government during a brief interlude in Russian rule in 1997, was long the point of contact between the Kremlin and the Chechen fighters, though the Kremlin ceased to recognize him as president when Russian troops returned to the region in 1999.

In November last year his top envoy, Akhmed Zakayev, was promised immunity in order to meet a Kremlin official at a Moscow airport — the two sides’ only formal encounter in the second campaign.

But since the theatre siege the Kremlin has repeatedly linked Maskhadov to “terrorist” movements.

“Maskhadov was entirely aware of the operation and the tragedy has dealt a hefty blow to his reputation,” Yastrzhembsky said after playing recordings of telephone conversations allegedly linking Maskhadov to the Moscow siege. Maskhadov has distanced himself from the attack, offering his condolences to the victims.

In another blow to Maskhadov’s capacity to hold peace talks, Moscow pressed Denmark to arrest and extradite Zakayev, in Copenhagen for a conference on Chechnya.

He was arrested on Wednesday after the meeting Moscow said was planned specifically to coincide with the theatre siege. Yastrzhembsky said Russia had already asked for his extradition.

“Zakayev came to Moscow (last year) and we guaranteed his safety to begin contacts,” Yastrzhembsky said.

“But these contacts yielded no constructive results.”

Yastrzhembsky spoke at a news conference with Moscow’s mayor and security officials, intended to defend the decision to gas and then storm the theatre. Hundreds of explosives, grenades and bombs were displayed to illustrate fears the hostage takers could have blown up the theatre unless gassed to sleep before an attack.

An official from the FSB, the successor to the Soviet-era KGB, said the guerillas held at least 110kgs of TNT equivalent — enough to kill all the hostages and bring down the building.—Reuters