MOSCOW, April 26 (UPI) -- Russian and U.S. elder statesmen have launched a new forum to improve bilateral relations between the leading nuclear powers.
Russian President Vladimir Putin Thursday welcomed the formation of the new working group and met with its co-chairmen, former Russian Prime Minister and intelligence service chief Yevgeny Primakov and former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.
"I have supported the Russian-American initiative to set up the working group ... which will unite famous and respected politicians and public figures of both countries," Putin said, according to the report.
Primakov, who now runs the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said the working group would hold its first formal session in early July in Moscow. "The results of debates will be reported to the leaderships of both countries," he said.
Kissinger, who heads Kissinger Associates, said U.S. President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had given him the go-ahead to help launch the new body.
The Russian news agency noted that Kissinger has regularly visited Russia in the more than seven years since Putin became president.
Primakov has a reputation as an old "cold warrior" from the Soviet era and Kissinger, along with President Richard Nixon, was the main American architect of detente. Their new initiative appears intended to revive U.S.-Russian ties, which have become increasingly strained over Russian opposition to Bush administration moves to deploy missile defense systems in Central Europe and to open the way for Ukraine and Georgia, two former Soviet republics, to join the U.S.-led NATO alliance.
