BP and AAR have agreed to discuss management changes at their troubled joint venture, TNK-BP, but neither side expects a quick end to an ongoing fight over strategy and control.

BP CEO Tony Hayward met TNK-BP shareholder Mikhail Fridman on Wednesday in Prague, kicking off a round of intensive talks on the company's future. A source familiar with the situation said the talks were unprecedented since the outbreak of a struggle for control in late May.

"We've always believed that disagreements between the shareholders of TNK-BP will be eventually settled by negotiations,'' David Nicholas, a London-based spokesman at BP, said Friday. "It's a complex situation and may take some time'' to resolve, he cited Hayward as saying.

"Nothing has been agreed," AAR chief executive Stan Polovets said when asked about the meeting. "[It] was a first step, but there are many difficult issues that need to be resolved."

Vedomosti, citing a source, reported Friday that "Hayward and Fridman agreed to end the shareholders' war. The main condition is a complete changeover of TNK-BP's top management."

The report said BP had four to six months to nominate a new chief executive to replace embattled American CEO Robert Dudley, who left Russia in July after failing to renew his visa.

Under the company's founding document, the 2003 shareholders' agreement, BP has the right to nominate the CEO, and AAR has the right to nominate the chairman of the board. Fridman, currently serving as board chairman, may also step down, Vedomosti said.

A source close to TNK-BP cast doubt on an imminent peace deal Friday, saying the company remained under intense pressure despite the talks. "I think we are in for the long haul," the source said. "It's probably too early to judge whether this last meeting will change anything."

Arkady Dvorkovich, President Dmitry Medvedev's top economic aide, on Saturday denied that the Kremlin was interfering in the dispute and criticized what he described as insinuations in media and diplomatic circles that the government was behind the conflict.

In an apparent morale-boosting measure, TNK-BP on Monday was to run an advertisement in four newspapers -- Rossiiskaya Gazeta, Vedomosti, Kommersant and The Moscow Times -- highlighting its strong first-half results.

While BP's partners, two of whom have senior management positions at TNK-BP, have said they would accept a changing of the guard in the upper echelons if Dudley stepped down, it was unclear whether Fridman had ever expressed willingness to give up the chairmanship. Dudley has been a flash point in the conflict and is accused by AAR of managing the company in BP's interests.

On Thursday, the State Labor Inspectorate sent a letter to Dudley asking his company to submit documents for hiring foreign workers by midday Monday, Interfax reported.

Also Friday, the Moscow Prosecutor's Office said it had no claims against TNK-BP. "Let people work normally without our involvement in this company. Let's stop stirring up the issue," said Prosecutor Yury Syomin, Interfax reported.

(Reuters, Bloomberg, MT)