WILMINGTON, Del. – American Tissue Inc.’s two top executives will indeed step aside, their lawyer told a bankruptcy judge late last week.

Nourollah Elghanayan, the board chairman, and Mehdi Gabayzadeh, the chief operating officer, promised to resign a week ago. But creditors and the government said executives balked and warned they still could exercise power as American Tissue’s owners.

Both men agreed Friday to resign that day and not to use their power as owners to change the makeup of the company’s board, lawyer Alan Kolod told U.S. District Judge Roderick McKelvie.

Through a subsidiary, American Tissue owns mills in Berlin and Gorham, N.H., that employed 860 people before they shut down in August.

American Tissue owes millions of dollars in unpaid taxes, interest and municipal services to Berlin and Gorham, N.H., which are struggling to maintain their budgets and services.

American Tissue is the country’s fourth-largest tissue maker with operations from Oregon to Maine, including a mill in Augusta. The company employs 4,200 people and is the largest private employer in northern New Hampshire.