PM Modi held a trilateral meeting with Trump and Abe on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Argentina.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said that the trilateral relationship between Japan, USA and India was a "success" as he gave a new acronym - JAI - to the grouping of three countries.
Modi held a trilateral meeting with US President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Argentinian capital Buenos Aires.
"Both countries are our strategic partners and both leaders are my good friends. Japan, USA, India acronym is JAI, so Jai in India means success. This sends a good message," Modi said as he met the two leaders.
Trump also hailed the relationship with the two countries saying "we are doing very well together."
"We just had a great meeting. Our relationship is extremely great, strong. It is stronger than ever. We are doing very well together, lot of defence and military purchases," Trump said.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders had earlier said the trilateral meeting would be held towards the end of the Trump-Abe bilateral talks.
The meeting between Modi, Trump and Abe was first of its kind and came at a time when China is engaged in hotly contested territorial disputes in the South China Sea, and with Japan in the East China Sea. Both the areas are said to be rich in minerals, oil and other natural resources.
China claims almost all of the South China Sea. Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have overlapping claims in the waterway, which includes vital sea lanes through which about USD 3 trillion in global trade passes each year.
The US has been conducting regular patrols in the South China Sea to assert freedom of navigation in the area where Beijing has built up and militarised many of the islands and reefs it controls in the region.
Prime Minister Modi, in his keynote address at the Shangri La Dialogue in Singapore in June expounded India's stand on the strategic Indo-Pacific region.
"India does not see the Indo-Pacific Region as a strategy or as a club of limited members. Nor as a grouping that seeks to dominate.
And by no means do we consider it as directed against any country. A geographical definition, as such, cannot be," he had said.
"India stands for open and stable international trade regime. We will also support rule-based, open, balanced and stable trade environment in the Indo-Pacific region, which lifts up all nations on the tide of trade and investment," he said while explaining New Delhi's stand.
(With PTI inputs)
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