GROZNY -- Former parliament speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov blasted Chechnya's Moscow-backed government Thursday, calling it an illegitimate body hindering the peace process in the breakaway southern republic.


"[The government] came to power on Russian bayonets and tanks, spilling a sea of blood," Khasbulatov told Interfax.


Khasbulatov, an ethnic Chechen who remains popular in Chechnya, led a parliamentary rebellion against President Boris Yeltsin in Moscow in 1993.


But Yeltsin conceded recently that Khasbulatov might be able to help achieve a peace accord palatable to Chechens.


On Thursday, Khasbulatov said the leaders of the Moscow-supported government "live in their narrow world isolated from the trouble of the people."


Moscow installed the National Revival government after invading Chechnya in December to quash its three-year bid for independence.


Khasbulatov also pushed for more negotiations, saying: "A round table is better than a war."


Meanwhile, the situation across the Caucasus Mountains republic remained tense.


The village of Sernovodsk, on Chechnya's western border with the ethnic republic of Ingushetia, has been surrounded by Russian troops for several days, according to local reports.


Hundreds of Chechens and Ingush are picketing nearby to demand that the Russians free the town, which Moscow says is controlled by armed rebels.


In the capital, Grozny, Chechens threatened to halt peace talks unless Russian troops stop "violating human rights" in Sernovodsk, Interfax said.


But in two other Chechen towns, rebels resumed disarmament Thursday, as part of a July 30 military accord. Chechen fighters turned over weapons in Alkhazurovo and Komsomolskoye in the south of the republic, Interfax said.


The accord, which calls for rebel disarmament, a partial Russian pullout and prisoner exchanges, is supposed to pave the way for elections in Chechnya, with the republic's political status to be determined later.


But Khasbulatov said Thursday that elections will be impossible without a legitimate government -- which the National Revival is not, he said.


Moscow says about 13,000 troops have been pulled out of Chechnya, but thousands more remain. The warring sides are frequently accusing each other of dragging their feet in implementing the accord.


Defense Minister Pavel Grachev, speaking to World War II veterans in Moscow on Thursday, said the rebel Chechens regard the treaty as "a ploy for the sake of military buildup."


He estimated the rebel strength at 6,000 fighters. The separatists have recently acquired 12 tanks and 16 armored vehicles from unspecified sources, he said.