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Last update - 07:51 09/05/2009
Obama to deliver speech to Muslim world in June
By Haaretz Service and News Agencies
Tags: Israel News, Egypt 

U.S. President Barack Obama, who has pledged to rebuild U.S. relations with the Muslim world, will give a key speech on the issue in Egypt on June 4, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said on Friday.

Many Arab and Muslim nations were angered by the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, harsh interrogation of terrorism suspects at Guantanamo, abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Bush's initial reluctance to pursue Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Obama's Egypt trip fulfills a promise he made during his presidential campaign to give a major address to Muslims from a Muslim capital during the first few months in office.
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The Muslim world will be watching to see his approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Most Muslims believed Bush's policies toward the region were biased in favor of Israel.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters on Friday the speech would be delivered in Egypt on June 4 but did not say whether it would be in the Egyptian capital Cairo.

The country has been a key partner for Washington in decades of efforts to secure Middle East peace and is one of the biggest recipients of U.S. military and economic aid.

But the choice of Egypt, which has a poor human rights record, could potentially overshadow the substance of Obama's speech, and Gibbs found himself on the defensive over the issue at a White House news conference.

"It is a country that in many ways represents the heart of the Arab world," Gibbs said.

"The scope of the speech, the desire for the president to speak [to the Muslim world], is bigger than where the speech was going to be given or who's the leadership of the country where the speech is going to be given," he said.

Egypt's ambassador to the United States, Sameh Shoukry, said his country offered Obama a good venue because of its large population, intellectual traditions and "values of moderate Islam."

"The true nature of Islam lies in its moderate heart, not at its radical fringes. Egypt is very hopeful that President Obama's speech will mark a watershed in America's relations with the Muslim world," Shoukry said in a statement.

"It is important that America's relations with the Muslim world be based on mutual respect and understanding," he added. "Egypt stands ready to work with President Obama and his administration toward that objective, in accordance with our long-standing friendship."

Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave a major policy speech in Egypt in 2005 at a time when U.S. popularity was seriously dented by the Iraq war.

Rice's speech was part of the Bush administration's "democracy agenda." She urged reforms across the region, specifically targeting her host, which drew anger from Cairo.

However, the new U.S. administration has dropped the previous government's focus on building democracy and Obama's speech will likely be more conciliatory

Obama reached out to Arabs and Muslims in a speech in the Turkish capital Ankara in April, his first visit as president to a predominantly Islamic nation.

In that speech, he said the United States is not and never will be at war with Islam, and also spoke of the Arab-Israeli peace process, saying he will actively pursue the goal of creating a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Obama will make the speech a day before visiting the German city of Dresden and the Buchenwald concentration camp, Gibbs said.


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