President Vladimir Putin met his visiting U.S. counterpart George W. Bush on Wednesday for brief talks focused on Russia's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Iranian nuclear program at a Moscow airport where the U.S. leader was making a refueling stopover en route to Asia.

Putin and his wife Lyudmila greeted Bush and his wife Laura on the tarmac of Vnukovo airport and they then headed into a wing of the terminal to talk over lunch, the Interfax news agency reported.

Speaking after the meeting, a Kremlin spokesman said Putin and Bush confirmed they were preparing to sign a deal on Russia's accession to the WTO in Hanoi on the sidelines of a summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, which both leaders are to attend at the weekend.

Russia -- the largest economy still outside the Geneva-based world trade body -- and the United States agreed on the terms of Russian accession to the WTO last week after marathon talks.

Iran's nuclear program was also discussed at the Putin-Bush meeting, which came several days after Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani visited Moscow for talks on ways to break the nuclear impasse.

The presidents "discussed various issues on the bilateral, as well as international, agenda. The focus was on the Iranian nuclear issue," Kremlin spokesman Alexei Gromov was quoted as saying.

The United States is seeking to impose sanctions on Iran through the UN Security Council on the grounds that Tehran is developing a nuclear-weapons program under the garb of a civilian-use program. Iran, however, says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.

Russian officials have criticized the a European draft resolution imposing sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear program.

Source: Xinhua