Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger meets with Putin in Moscow

Russian President Vladimir Putin met Wednesday with former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who was in Moscow on a business trip.

Neither Putin nor Kissinger made any public comments before heading into talks at the Kremlin, the AP reports.

Kissinger, who was secretary of state and national security adviser during the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, retains substantial influence in foreign affairs. Kissinger has met several times with the Russian president.

Kissinger and George Shultz, another former U.S. secretary of state, met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov later on Wednesday. Kissinger was quoted as saying by the ITAR-Tass news agency that the relations between Russia and the United States were good and the two nations were "working together on different problems." A.M.