01 June 2009
Obama Seeks Enhanced Engagement with the Middle East, Europe
Washington — The centerpiece of President Obama’s five-day visit to the Middle East and to Europe will be his speech June 4 at Cairo University on U.S. relations with the Muslim world, say White House advisers.
“President Obama’s speech will be an important part of this engagement with the Muslim world, which began in his inaugural (speech) and has continued through venues such as his interview with Al Arabiya, his Nowruz message, and his speech and town hall (meeting) in Turkey,” said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs.
Obama begins his trip June 3 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for consultations with King Abdullah on issues including the Middle East peace process, energy and terrorism. He travels June 4 to Cairo for meetings with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his long-anticipated speech at Cairo University, which is being co-hosted by Al-Azhar University, regarded as one of the world’s leading Islamic institutions of higher education.
On June 5 Obama travels to Dresden, Germany, for talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel, a visit with wounded U.S. troops at the military hospital in Landstuhl and a tour of the former Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald. He closes his trip June 6 with a trip to France, a meeting with President Nicolas Sarkozy in Caen, and participation in ceremonies commemorating the 65th anniversary of the Allied invasion of Normandy on D-Day. Obama will give a speech at the American cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer.
THE CAIRO SPEECH
But it is the Cairo speech that provides the critical moment of his trip, Gibbs said in a White House conference call with journalists May 29. “The speech will outline his personal commitment to engagement, based upon mutual interests and mutual respect. He will discuss how the United States and Muslim communities around the world can bridge some of the differences that have divided them,” Gibbs said.
The president will address violent extremism and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and areas for new partnerships that will serve the mutual interests of the United States and Muslim peoples, Gibbs said.
A significant factor in selecting Cairo for this speech is the importance that Egypt holds as a long-time strategic ally of the United States, said Denis McDonough, the deputy national security adviser for strategic communications.
“The message the president wants to send is not different, frankly, than the one he’s been sending since he was inaugurated, namely that we believe that this is an opportunity for us in the United States,” McDonough said. “We want to get back on a shared partnership, back in a conversation that focuses on the shared values.”
This trip is an opportunity to continue the president’s outreach both in the Middle East and in Europe, McDonough said. On May 18, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in Washington for talks with the president on how to resume the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and then on May 28 Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas held lengthy meetings with Obama at the White House.
An Obama-Mubarak meeting had been planned for May 26 in Washington, but Mubarak suffered a family tragedy with the death of a grandson, and their meeting was delayed. They will consult during Obama’s visit to Cairo. Mubarak has been actively engaged in trying to help restart the peace process and in building support for the process in the Arab world.
“With Mubarak, some of the traditional issues about the Middle East will be — obviously, will be front and center, and I think the president, as he always does with leaders around the world, will not hesitate to bring up some of the important civil society issues, democracy issues, that he has brought up with the Chinese and others,” said Mark Lippert, deputy national security adviser and National Security Council chief of staff.
The Cairo speech, expected to be closely watched by the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims, comes just ahead of critical elections in Lebanon and Iran.
EUROPEAN TALKS
McDonough said the consultations with Merkel of Germany and Sarkozy of France, two essential allies of the United States in the trans-Atlantic relationship, will include Afghanistan and Pakistan, preparations for the upcoming Group of Eight (G8) economic summit in Italy in July, and efforts to keep the world’s worst weapons out of the hands of extremists.
Nonproliferation concerns relate directly to Iran and its pursuit of nuclear weapons, McDonough said. “There’s a fundamental need, in the president’s view, to change how we deal with these issues, how we engage our allies,” he said.
McDonough said that how we engage our allies in the future will be part of the talks with each global leader: King Abdullah, President Mubarak, Chancellor Merkel, President Sarkozy, and with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
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