London  - US President Barack Obama and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh affirmed the strong relationship between their two countries during their first meeting Thursday on the sidelines of the G20 summit in London.

Obama said that they discussed terrorism, both in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and how the US and India can effectively coordinate their counterterrorism efforts.

"We also spoke about the fact that in a nuclear age, at a time when perhaps the greatest enemy of both India and Pakistan should be poverty, that it may make sense to create a more effective dialogue between India and Pakistan," Obama said at a news conference, where he called Singh "a very wise and decent man."

Singh, it transpired, had earlier shown Obama another kind of deference, when he asked the American president for an autograph to take back to India for his daughter.

Singh, who once described himself as an "accidental politician" who didn't "understand politics," was a former finance minister and architect of India's economic reform programme.

Obama said that Singh "has done a wonderful job in guiding India, even prior to being prime minister, along a path of extraordinary economic growth that is a marvel, I think, for all the world."

The Indian premier described his meeting with Obama as "marked by exceptional warmth and cordiality," and said he thanked the US president for "all that he has done in the US Senate and outside in the past few years to make possible the transformation of India-US relations."

Singh said at a news conference that he and Obama had a "significant convergence of views and approaches" with regard to international efforts to combat terrorism. Obama shared with Singh the new US strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. (dpa)