Russian President Boris Yeltsin and United States President Bill Clinton held a 45-minute-long one-on-one meeting at the Cirangan Palace in Istanbul on Thursday.

The two leaders did not speak to the press after their meeting and the details of their meeting are not immediately known.

Later, Yeltsin had a meeting with French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder but the meeting lasted only five to 10 minutes.

Yeltsin said he was flying home to deal with the rebel republic of Chechnya, but the three leaders agreed to meet again on December 21 in Paris, Chirac's spokesman Catherine Colonna said.

At the opening session of the Summit of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which kicked off this morning, Yeltsin and Clinton confronted each other over the Chechnya issue.

The Russian president said the Russian army's offensive in Chechnya is a fight against international terrorists, whose aim is to spread extremism throughout the world.

But Clinton warned that Russia's actions can increase rather than reduce the threat of terrorism, and result in an endless cycle of violence.

Yeltsin said there can be no negotiations with bandits and that peace requires their "complete destruction," adding "we do not accept the advice of so-called objective critics of Russia."

Clinton warned that Russia's international ties may be damaged if it does not halt its military actions in the rebel republic.

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov earlier stressed that Moscow does not want Chechnya discussed at the summit, saying the "local matters" should be avoided.

Russians troops backed by tanks and artillery are launching large scale attacks on the Chechnya-based militants, who twice invaded neighboring Dagestan this summer and are blamed for a series of apartment bombings that killed some 300 people in Moscow and other cities across Russia in September.

In October 1991, Chechnya declared independence but Russia has never accepted it. (Xinhua)