U.S. President Barack Obama met with former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev here last Friday, the White House confirmed on Monday, Xinhua reported.
The meeting was not on Obama's official daily schedule. As planned, Gorbachev was at the White House for meeting with U.S. 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,"
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs made simple explanation about the Obama-Gorbachev meeting which was not previously disclosed.
On the meeting between Biden and Gorbachev, Gibbs said, the two discussed continued ways in which the United States and Russia can work together to reduce their nuclear arsenal.
Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev will talk about the same topic when they attend the G20 Summit in London on April 1, according to the White House spokesman.