Barack Obama and Manmohan Singh at G20 summit

Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and U.S. President Barack Obama Thursday held their first joint talks and agreed to build up strategic partnership in all areas, including fighting terrorism.

During the talks, Dr. Manmohan Singh made clear that Pakistan must show total honesty in bringing the perpetrators of the Mumbai attack to book before the talks can be resumed between the two countries.

'We discussed development in Afghanistan and Pakistan. We both agreed that our two countries must work together to counter the forces of terror,' Manmohan Singh replied when asked about his first meeting with President Obama on the sidelines of the G20 summit here.

'We have a international considered partnership with the US. We both have agreed that there are enormous opportunities to strengthen this relationship and to make it more fruitful and strong.'

He described the discussion as 'useful and fruitful' that focused on development of joint relations and how problems of the region can be resolved by interaction between the two countries.

Apart from the global financial condense, the two leaders discussed the entire group of bilateral, regional and global issues, including terrorism, energy security, climate change and the situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

US and Russia to renew discussions after a decade

U.S. and Russia will reopen conference to reduce their nuclear weapons, a BBC report mentioned President Barack Obama and his Russian President Dmitry Medvedev as saying on Wednesday here, ahead of the G-20 economic summit which begins on Thursday.

The discussions will be the first such talks for more than a decade. The announcement came on the fringes of the G20 summit of world leaders which is convening in London.

The U.S. and Russia have also agreed to discuss "mutual international co-operation", the two presidents said.

Obama said earlier there were very real differences between Washington and Moscow, but that there was also a broad set of common interests.

After their meeting, Medvedev said that he viewed prospects for future bilateral relations "with optimism". Meanwhile, Medvedev invited his American counterpart to visit Moscow in July - an invitation Obama has accepted.