In an attempt to find some recognition among Muslims elsewhere in the world, the Chechen government has sent a lone emissary, Selimkhan Yandarbiyev into the world. His efforts have met with singular lack of success, for reasons that apparently have more to do with commerce than religion. PNS commentator Thomas Goltz, author of "Azerbaijan Diary" (M.E. Sharpe, 1999) is currently working on a book on ethnic conflict in the post-Soviet Caucasus.

ISTANBUL -- He wanders about between countries and meetings, easily identifiable by his beard, beads, sheep-skin papakh headdress and his olive green military togs. On his passport he is a poet.

But Selimkhan Yandirbayev is not promoting literature. Rather, the second president of war-ravaged Chechnya and special emissary for the current Chechen leader, Aslan Maskhadov is traveling from one end of the Islamic world to the other, doggedly trying to achieve some sort of contact before his country disappears entirely under the Russian onslaught of bombs, bombs and more bombs.

"Fraternal Pakistan has promised us every support," said Yandirbayev at a hastily arranged press conference here, neglecting details about how he was officially asked to leave Pakistan save for vague references to Russian pressures. "I cannot detail my future movements, lest Moscow harass prospective hosts by threatening diplomatic sanction before I arrive."

Yandarbiyev, regarded as the chief theoretician of the Chechen national movement served as interim president of the breakaway republic from April, 1996 until January, 1997.

So far, Yandarbiyev's greatest diplomatic achievement has been getting the Taliban government of Afghanistan to recognize the independence of the Republic of Ichkeria, as the Chechens call their country. But the fundamentalist Muslim Taliban regime itself is not recognized by any other country in the world, including Iran, which threatened war with Kabul due to what Tehran regarded as religious excess.

Now, however, Yandarbiyev is in officially secular Turkey attempting to drum up support among the substantial North Caucasian Diaspora community. Known as "Circassians," Caucasian communities in Turkey and neighboring countries such as Syria and Jordan are themselves descendants of previous Muslim-Russian wars in the region in the 19th century.

Feelings -- and family -- run deep. Recently, a documentary film about a sub-Circassian group called the Adagi drew such crowds at an Istanbul film festival that the organizers were obliged to make a second showing -- while a thick crowd of well-heeled migrants waited at the door, demanding a third and fourth.

"The war in Chechnya has galvanized the Circassians in a way that would have been unimaginable a few years ago," said Mehmet Binay, a producer for the well-respected NTV channel. "The youth are re-learning the languages of the region, businessmen are trying to make connections -- and volunteers are volunteering for the cause of freedom from Moscow, after 100 years."

Just how this plays out with the Turkish political establishment is another question entirely. Russia and Turkey are billion dollar economic partners -- with some of the biggest names in Turkish construction groups and import/export intimately associated with mega-projects in the former Soviet Union. And Moscow appears to have won the jump on the Great Gas Sweepstakes, initiating a trans-Black Sea pipeline project to Turkey before rivals Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan (with keen American backing) and Iran (despite stiff American resistance) could stake a claim.

But "pure" economic evaluation leaves Yandarbiyev's Istanbul host -- Besim Tibuk, a businessman and chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party -- cold, furious.

"The other day, a deputy premier of the Russian Federation arrived in Istanbul to sell out army helicopters," said Besim Tibuk. "He arrived drunk -- but thanked Turkey for its 'sober' official attitude toward Chechnya, which means that all the killing, bombing and raping is merely an 'internal' matter for the Russians -- despite the fact that we have clear documentation that Russia actually recognized Chechen independence in 1996. And now this war against women and children, this genocide."

Tibuk's Party has no seats in the current Turkish parliament (he describes that body as a "coalition of weaklings" for its preference for business [in Russia] over blood [in Chechnya], and Tibuk is not optimistic about Yandarbiyev's prospects in Turkey.)

"The world is silent and we Turks are silent," he said. "Our media focuses on the fate of porpoises and whales, but does nothing about the extermination of our cousins in Chechnya.

"We prevent freezing Chechen refugees to enter our country, saying they have no passports -- as if the Kurds of Iraq and the Muslim of Bulgaria had perfect documentation when they washed up on our shores in their time. Our response to the tragedy of Chechnya is a scandal and sham that cannot be wiped off our national honor for 50 years."

As for Selimkhan Yandarbiyev, the former Chechen president presses on.

"I will meet with the people who will meet with me," he says. "But as for our 400-year-long war with Russia, it will not end until we are free -- whenever God dictates that that shall be."