MOSCOW • The leader of Chechnya’s separatist insurgency yesterday ruled out asking the Kremlin for peace talks despite being weakened by the killing of the rebels’ most feared commander.

Some Russian officials had predicted the 12-year-old insurgency in Chechnya would taper off after Shamil Basayev, deputy rebel leader and Russia’s most wanted man, was blown up in July.

In a speech posted on a rebel Web site, leader Doku Umarov said the campaign of violence would continue and he withdrew a long-standing offer of peace talks with Moscow.

“(We) more than once offered peace to the Kremlin ... But not once did they accept the hand we held out to them,” said the speech, posted on the www.chechenpress.net Web site.

“Therefore we do not intend to offer peace any more ... We have no intention of wasting our time on empty talk. And I say that so no one gets the impression we are weak.”

Russia has said it is not prepared to negotiate with the rebels. Russian forces and their local allies have control of most of Chechnya, a mountainous area in the Caucasus mountains. Large-scale fighting has stopped.

Several dozen rebel fighters have turned themselves in under an amnesty, pro-Moscow officials say. It is unclear how many of them were still active in the insurgency.

But the separatists – many of whom say they are fighting in the name of Islam – are still waging a campaign of guerrilla warfare from their mountain hideouts. They have also launched attacks on civilians that have claimed hundreds of lives.

The violence has spilled over into neighbouring Muslim republics in the region like Dagestan and Ingushetia.

“We have the right to defend the security of our people, our freedom. That is way we are fighting today,” Umarov said. “It has fallen to us to continue the war today.”