The world leaders Obama calls his BFFs

We know that President Obama conducts foreign policy with world leaders all the time. But of all the heads of state he's met, who does he count amongst his closest friends? 

In an interview with TIME magazine's Fareed Zakaria, Obama listed off his five nearest and dearest pals on the global stage. 

So, who made the cut?

Sadly, not ex-Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, whom Obama took out for a burger at Ray's Hell Burger last year, The Washington Post reported. 

But German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, and British Prime Minister David Cameron all made the cut.  

As Obama told Zakaria, 

"I mean, I think that if you ask them, [they] would say, we have a lot of trust and confidence in the President. We believe what he says. We believe that he’ll follow through on his commitments. We think he’s paying attention to our concerns and our interests. And that’s part of the reason why we’ve been able to forge these close working relationships and gotten a whole bunch of stuff done."

As for George W. Bush, the ex-President counted Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi among his best friends, Foreign Policy's "The Cable" blog reported.

Bush also called British Prime Minister Tony Blair "My closest partner and best friend on the world stage" and nicknamed him "Landslide." Bush also called Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien "Dino" (short for Dinosaur) and nick-named Vladimir Putin "Pootie-Poot," according to Foreign Policy.  

We wonder if the nicknames helped or hurt Bush's foreign policy, which Obama told TIME he admired. 

"I continue to believe that he managed a very difficult period very effectively," Obama said of Bush. 

Check out our slideshow of President Obama palling around with his picks. 

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