By Jonathan Steele

Moscow, Sept. 3 (Guardian News Service):The Kremlin on Thursday adopted a delicate approach to the hostage crisis in southern Russia as it attempted to square its fierceanti-terrorist rhetoric with the need to pander to a nation desperate for abloodless resolution.

In his first public remarks on the biggest challenge of his tenure,President Putin hinted at softly-softly tactics to defuse the explosivesituation in the North Ossetian primary school, promising to put the livesof the more than 300 hostages first.

``Our main task is, of course, to save the life and health of those whobecame hostages,'' Mr Putin said. At the same time, he said, he would notallow the drama to destabilise further the precarious balance in the NorthCaucasus, a region home to myriad ethnic tensions. ``We understand theseacts are not only against private citizens of Russia but against Russia asa whole," Mr Putin said in comments broadcast on Russian television. ``Whatis happening in North Ossetia is horrible."

Security officials warned against expecting a swift denouement to thestand-off, while reassuring the public there were no plans for apotentially bloody military operation to storm the school. ``One shouldexpect long and tense negotiations," the North Ossetian federalintelligence service chief, Valery Andreyev, was quoted by ITAR-TASS assaying.

Mr Putin won international support from the international community. TheUN security council issued a statement expressing determination to combat``all forms of terrorism'', a move that gives Russia a measure of supportfor its own fight against terror.

The Russian president may need it. Though Russia has suffered severalmass hostage crises in the last 10 years, the Beslan drama is potentiallythe most catastrophic. ``President Putin faces the most difficult decisionin the whole of his presidency,'' the daily Izvestia trumpeted yesterday.

The vast majority of those held are children and television images havestruck a raw nerve here. Parents across the country took part in similarback-to-school festivities on Wednesday.

Few will want to see Russian forces storm the school, knowing how highthe risk is that scores of children and teachers may die in the confusion.The effect could be especially grim politically for the Russian president.The last big hostage seizures, in the Dubrovka theatre in Moscow two yearsago, and in a hospital at Budyonnovsk in 1995 took place in cities whereRussians are in the majority. For all their anger at the high death toll(at Dubrovka 129 civilians died, at Budennovsk 130 civilians and 36 troopsand police were killed), people reacted phlegmatically, accepting it aspart of the tough environment in which they have always lived.

Beslan is different. In the Caucasus, people are not so forgiving ofofficial Russian blunders. If precipitate actions by Russia's specialforces produced high casualties, the public mood could turn sour. It wouldnot produce sympathy for the Chechens, but it could move Ossetians into anattitude of ``a plague on both your houses".

Using the knockout gas employed to end the theatre siege in Moscow isscarcely likely. The gas not only incapacitated all the hostage takers. Itkilled scores of their victims.

One difference with the Moscow theatre siege could help Mr Putin,provided he was willing to negotiate. A key demand of the hostage takers isthat Russia release the dozen or so gunmen arrested and imprisoned after aChechen raid on several police stations and posts in and around Nazran,the capital of Ingushetia, in June.

To release these people and let the Beslan hostage takers have safepassage out, if they end the school seizure peacefully, is feasible sincethey could be guaranteed safe travel to Chechnya within little more than anhour.

The difficulty for the Russian president is that he continues to ruleout all talks with the militants, trying instead to link the Chechen warwith ``international terrorism".

If his aim is to get official western sympathy, he is successful. Thisweek France's President Jacques Chirac and Germany's Chancellor GerhardSchroder publicly supported his line on Chechnya. President Bush has alsomuted all criticism of Russian tactics in Chechnya. But what makes forsuccessful foreign diplomacy does not solve Russia's domestic problem - howto end a war which has gone on for five years under Mr Putin's presidency.

Mr Putin has little to fear from a disastrous outcome to the Beslansiege. He has just been elected to a second term in the Kremlin. But hecould suffer long-term damage to his widespread image as a tough andcompetent leader.