MOSCOW, Oct 13: Mothers of Russian soldiers fighting in Chechnya offered on Wednesday to mediate with guerillas, opening a rift with President Vladimir Putin's policy of no negotiation.

Mr Putin has long rejected holding peace talks and calls the Chechen rebel leaders terrorists, but the offer by the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers reflects public concern over Chechnya, where troops and police die daily as well as many Chechens.

A wave of attacks by guerillas outside Chechnya, including a hostage-taking raid on a Russian school last month that killed more than 330 people, thrust a war largely overlooked by the world back into the spotlight.

"We know the terrible price of a decade of conflict in Chechnya. It is the great and irrecoverable losses of the Chechen people ... It is the death of thousands of our sons," said the group in a written appeal to the Chechen commanders.

The committee won broad respect after war started in Chechnya in 1994 by travelling to the southern Russian region to find soldiers captured by rebels and sending aid shipments.

"You will kill or will be killed endlessly. You can change nothing as long as you are not recognised as a counterpart for talks. The soldiers' mothers are appealing ... give peace a chance and start talks," the group said.

Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov has frequently asked Mr Putin to hold peace talks, and last month offered to try to intervene to free the people held hostage in the school in Beslan, near Chechnya, by followers of warlord Shamil Basayev. -Reuters