Chechen rebels are in telephone contact with the Kremlin but there are no immediate plans to relaunch peace talks after a first and only meeting last year, the rebel envoy said on Thursday.

"Telephone contacts have continued between my assistants and deputies of (Moscow envoy Viktor) Kazantsev, but no meetings," Akhmed Zakayev told Reuters by telephone from Strasbourg in France, where the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe debated Chechnya this week.

Zakayev, envoy of Chechen pro-independence President Aslan Maskhadov, briefly met Kazantsev, President Vladimir Putin's representative to southern Russia, at a Moscow airport in November for the only peace talks in more than two years of war.

After months of toning down criticism of Moscow's Chechen campaign after the September 11 attacks on the United States, Western leaders have again been calling for talks to end the war.

Since the November meeting, Moscow has said it is still willing to meet Maskhadov's representatives but the Chechens must disavow the use of force and lay down their arms.

"Our position has always been clear. We are ready for talks without preconditions. My meeting with Kazantsev showed that," Zakayev said.

"But we have no choice. We cannot halt our resistance when we face our complete destruction. The choice is Russia's - do they want war or peace?" he said.

"Since my meeting with Kazantsev, their acts of force against the population have become only more severe. It would be amoral for us to reopen talks under such conditions."

In December and January, Russia launched a new military crackdown in Chechnya, sealing off villages and carrying out mass arrests of men it says are suspected militants.

A spokesman for Kazantsev declined to comment on the reported telephone contacts, as did the Kremlin.

file://Reuters//