The United States and Russia are trying to repair their ties that soured during the Bush administration by carrying out delicate diplomatic maneuvers, analysts say.
The White House confirmed Monday that President Barack Obama met former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev last Friday.
The meeting was not on Obama's official daily schedule. As planned, Gorbachev was at the White House for a meeting with US Vice President Joe Biden.
However, "the president tends to roam around the larger (White)House and sometimes walks into meetings that weren't previously on his schedule," said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.
US presidents sometimes hold informal "drop by" meetings with senior officials or informal representatives of other countries, who by protocol are not qualified for an official Oval Office welcome.
The Obama-Gorbachev meeting was the latest in a series of contacts between the two countries ahead of a meeting between Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev scheduled on the fringes of the upcoming G20 summit in London.
While meeting former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in Moscow last week, Medvedev said he pinned high hopes on his appointment with Obama, and hoped the two sides can "reset" their ties.
The visits by veteran politicians showed that both the United States and Russia are eager to revamp their chilled ties in a tentative and delicate way, analysts say.
In this fashion, the two sides can test the waters before the planned Obama-Medvedev meeting, and deliver a signal to the world that they are dealing with their ties prudently but actively.
Russian-US relations have dropped to a post-Cold War low due to US missile shield plans in eastern Europe, Russia's brief war with Georgia last August and NATO's eastward expansion.
However, the Obama government has shown willingness to repair its ties with Russia.
In February, Biden, at the Munich Security Conference, first declared the Obama administration's intention to press "the reset button" in US-Russian relations.
In a symbolic gesture, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov a small box bearing a red button marked "reset" on March 6 in Geneva, implying they would seek a "fresh start" for bilateral relations.
These tentative contacts would climax at the pending Obama-Medvedev meeting, during which the two leaders would discuss bilateral ties including how to work together to reduce their nuclear arsenals.
(Xinhua News Agency March 25, 2009)