Chechen and Russian negotiators in Grozny said Monday the outlook for reaching a peace agreement had soured, with each side placing blame on the other, dashing hopes expressed before the weekend that a deal was imminent.


Usman Imayev, Chechnya's chief negotiator, told journalists at a break in the talks that the negotiations had essentially stalled due to the position Moscow had taken over the status of Chechnya, Interfax reported.


And whereas Imayev has frequently offered gloomy assessments while the Russian side predicted success and the talks continued regardless, the Russian negotiators too were unhappy Monday.


Arkady Volsky said the situation had significantly worsened since last Friday, when both sides confidently predicted that an agreement would be signed within hours. He laid the blame on rebel Chechen leader Dzhokhar Dudayev, who in a televised interview had called the Russian side "hairsplitters."


The talks ended Monday evening with no joint communiqu?. Both sides said that talks had snagged specifically over the formation of an interim government to lead the republic to an election later this year. Negotiations were set to resume Tuesday.


As late as Monday morning, when the talks restarted, the head of the Russian delegation, Nationalities Minister Vyacheslav Mikhailov, said the two sides were about to sign a protocol to "outline the peculiarities of the status of Chechnya as part of the Russian Federation, taking into account the historical background and the universally recognized right to self-determination."


This masterpiece of diplomatic linguistics followed an exchange of much blunter statements from both sides late last week. Asked on Friday whether Chechnya would remain part of Russia, Volsky replied, "Where else can it go?"


Imayev responded by slamming Volsky for "disrespect for the Chechen delegation and for results achieved by peaceful diplomatic means."


Dudayev made a defiant statement on Chechen radio that seemed to put the talks back where they started last month.


"There is not a force on earth that can break the will of the Chechen people and lead it back into the Russian stable," Itar-Tass quoted Dudayev as saying. "The discussions have not yielded positive results and are unlikely to do so because they have fallen into the hands of hair-splitters."


All was not lost, however, as Russian Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov said the sides had reached a military deal Sunday, including exchange of prisoners and details on disarmament.


A senior analyst with President Boris Yeltsin's Center for Information and Analysis said the way the talks have gone back and forth shows the Chechen side, at least, is trying to buy time rather than find a solution to the crisis.


"I think the Chechen side may be interested in stalling the talks to get some breathing space and regroup," Arkady Popov said. "I think they may also be waiting for the Constitutional Court to pass a verdict on the legality of the Chechen war. If the court rules the president's decision to send troops to Chechnya unconstitutional, Imayev will have a stronger negotiating position than Mikhailov."


The Constitutional Court is due to rule this week after a group of parliament deputies questioned the legality of Yeltsin's orders to send troops to the breakaway republic. Interfax quoted a source at the court as saying it would rule in favor of the president.


"I do not think the federal side wants the talks to drag on," Popov said. "That would damage the prestige not so much of the delegation in Grozny as of the government and Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, who started the talks."


The Russian side has in the past made much more encouraging statements on the imminence of a deal. The Chechens however have warned against optimism, and members of the Chechen team have at times seemed at odds with each other.


While Imayev told Itar-Tass on Sunday that a political communiqu? had been prepared for signing, another Chechen negotiator, Akhmad Zakayev, was quoted by Reuters as saying, "Our delegation as of today is not authorized to define relations with the Russian Federation, just as Russian delegates are not authorized to recognize us as an independent state."