Having issued a secret directive in December that U.S. diplomats should push for closeness between India and Pakistan, U.S. President Barack Obama must have been wondering if his envoys were a bit too quick to follow through when he found himself spending Sunday in Washington navigating between simultaneous visits by the prime ministers of India and Pakistan.

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U.S. President Barack Obama, right, takes part in a bilateral meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the sidelines of the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington.

For the most part, he seems to have managed the triangulation deftly enough as he prepared to host a nuclear summit, the reason world leaders had gathered in D.C.

Mr. Obama told Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that he was supportive of India’s desire for access to David Coleman Headley, the U.S. citizen who recently pleaded guilty to charges relating to the Mumbai terror attacks in 2008. At least that was according to a briefing given by Nirupama Rao, India’s foreign secretary, who is part of the Indian delegation. (The office White House “readout” of the meeting between Obama and Singh makes no mention of Headley.)

The two leaders also issued fresh pledges of agreement on things they had settled on previously — “the need for India and the United States to work together on global development issues, including economic infrastructure, food security and poverty reduction,” according to the White House statement. And Mr. Obama gave a nod to India’s participation in humanitarian and development assistance in Afghanistan while avoiding a potentially awkward blowup over Iran.

The U.S., United Kingdom and Germany are pushing for tougher sanctions against Iran. India appears to be anti, with Mr. Rao noting that sanctions targeted at ordinary people invariably fail. As disagreements go, though, it was muted. Mr. Rao added that the two sides had agreed to stay in touch over the issue.

Still, as tends to happen when these two countries try to show their closeness, you couldn’t help but notice that Mr. Obama’s choice of language was a few degrees warmer for Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. Obama opened his meeting with Mr. Gilani “by noting that he is very fond of Pakistan, having visited the country during college,” the White House said in statement.

Mr. Obama also expressed his condolences to Pakistan for the attacks last week on the U.S. consulate in Peshawar and a separate bombing the same day that killed 46. (Any condolences he may have expressed to Mr. Singh about the Maoist slaughter of 76 policemen last week in India were not mentioned by the White House.)

Of course, there was much more said in both meetings than any formal statement is going to express. And the optics of having Mr. Obama meet with Mr. Singh is important now given Indian sensibilities about being left behind China and Pakistan on the list of U.S. priorities in the region.

The White House also noted that “President Obama reiterated his commitment to visit India in 2010.” Maybe at that time Mr. Obama will tell India that he is very fond of it, too.