KIEV, Ukraine - Leaders from 11 former Soviet states gathered in southern Ukraine on Friday for a one-day meeting to debate turning their loose confederation into a free-trade zone.

　The members of the Commonwealth of Independent States, an alliance formed in 1991 soon after the Soviet Union collapsed, have tried repeatedly to establish closer economic ties, but with little success.

　The participants signed several deals, including an agreement on reducing customs regulations, with the eventual goal of turning the CIS into a free-trade zone. They also discussed ways of enforcing earlier cooperation agreements and measures aimed at encouraging small businesses.

　Prime ministers or their deputies from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan convened in the resort town of Yalta on the Crimean peninsula, its organizers said.

　Belarus, the only other CIS member, did not send delegates.

　Trade among CIS states totaled $20.6 billion in the first half of 1999, shrinking by more than a third compared with the same period in 1998, according to Ukrainian government data.

　The drop has been blamed on a crisis in global markets that contributed to last year's sharp economic slide in Russia, the largest CIS state. All of the member states have been struggling to resurrect their economies since the Soviet collapse.

　CIS foreign ministers met separately in Yalta to discuss measures to combat terrorism across the former Soviet Union, and they signed a statement pledging to react jointly.

　The meeting comes at a time of instability in southern Russia, where government forces have entered the breakaway republic of Chechnya to battle Islamic militants suspected in a wave of apartment bombings in Russia last month that left 300 people dead.

　 (USA Today)