New Delhi,
A day after his keynote address at Asian security convention, ‘Shangri-La Dialogue’, in Singapore, Prime Minister Narendra Modi discussed regional and global situation with US Defence Secretary James Mattis.

The meeting comes at a time when India is lobbying with Capitol Hill and White House to deflect secondary sanctions for doing business, especially connectivity projects, oil trade, defence and nuclear deals, with Tehran and Moscow.

“The focus of conversation was on the region in the context of PM’s keynote address at the #SLD18 (Shangri-La Dialogue 2018) yesterday evening,” tweeted MEA spokesperson Raveesh Kumar. In his speech on Friday, PM Modi laid out his vision for a peaceful Indo-Pacific committed to rules-based order and an Asian century that needed India and China to work together. Mattis addressed the forum earlier this morning and later, in response to questions, explained the reasoning behind renaming of America’s largest command to US Indo-Pacific Command, highlighting centrality of India to the region.

Mattis also stressed that the US was going to stay interested in this region, which was a “priority theatre” for the Donald Trump administration. While neither PM Modi nor Mattis mentioned the revived quadrilateral security dialogue between the US, India, Australia and Japan in their address, the Defence Secretary said while responding to a query: “These are four democracies that are talking about how we maintain stability, open navigation and keep things peaceful. I think it is absolutely an idea fit for its time.”

Mattis also defended India’s role in Afghanistan, arguing that the conflict torn country could not be looked at in isolation and both India and Pakistan had legitimate security interests and potential roles to play. “We put these strategies together as a way to find common ground regionally,” he said.