Lebed Holds Meet On Chechnya

We are ripe for peace, Interfax news agency quoted Lebed as saying on arrival in the region, which borders Chechnya.

If anyone opposes peace he cannot remain a regional leader, added the retired general, whom President Boris Yeltsin had ordered to end the 21-month war in Chechnya.

Rebel leader Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, who had been expected to attend the meeting, would not come for health reasons.

Yandarbiyev's deputy, Said-Khasan Abumuslimov, was heading the separatist delegation at the meeting. It did not make clear if rebel chief-of-staff Aslan Maskhadov, whose arrival had been expected, was in the team.

The head of Chechnya's pro-Moscow administration, Doku Zavgayev, had not been not invited. Interfax said a group of Russian parliamentary deputies were planning to meet Yandarbiyev. It quoted rebel spokesman Movladi Udugov as saying Yandarbiyev and the deputies would tackle issues surrounding planned talks between the separatist leader and Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin.