US President Barack Obama Monday told the Muslim world that "Americans are not your enemy" and renewed his pledge to travel to make an address in the capital of a major Muslim nation...
Obama noted that he had lived in Indonesia for several years while growing up, and said his travels through Muslim nations had convinced him that regardless of faith, people had certain common hopes and dreams...
"My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy-we sometimes make mistakes-we have not been perfect," Obama said in an interview with the Al-Arabiya satellite television network...
"But if you look at the track record t America was not born as a colonial power, and that the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago, there's no reason why we can't restore that."
During the 2008 election campaign, Obama vowed to improve US ties with the Muslim world and said he would travel to a major Islamic forum abroad to send that message...
"We're going to follow through on our commitment for me to address the Muslim world from a Muslim capital," Obama said in the interview with the Dubai-based channel...
"We are going to follow through on many of my commitments to do a more effective job of reaching out, listening as well as speaking to the Muslim world," he said. Obama did not give a time, or a venue for his visit to a major Muslim capital...
He was also asked about the highly personal tone of recent Al- Qaeda messages released since he was elected president in November...
He agreed with his interviewer that the tone of recent videos seemed "nervous." "What that tells me is that their ideas are bankrupt," he said. US President Barack Obama told Israelis and Palestinians it was time to return to the negotiating table, as he dispatched his new special envoy George Mitchell on a debut tour of the region...
The US president, a week after his historic inauguration, cautioned however that he did not want expectations raised too high of swift progress in the volatile region, following the Israeli war against Hamas in Gaza. "I do believe that the moment is ripe for both sides to realise that the path that they are on is one that is not going to result in prosperity and security for their people," Obama told Al-Arabiya television network...
"Instead, it's time to return to the negotiating table."
The new US president had earlier met Mitchell at the White House along with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, before sending him off on a mission to Israel, the West Bank, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, London and Paris...
Obama, who has promised to directly address Middle East questions at the start of his presidency, rather than waiting for years like his predecessor George W. Bush, warned however against expectations of quick results...
"I want to make sure that expectations are not raised so that we think that this is going to be resolved in a few months," the president told the Dubai-based satellite television channel...
"But if we start the steady progress on these issues, I'm absolutely confident that the United States, working in tandem with the European Union, with Russia, with all the Arab States in the region-I'm absolutely certain that we can make significant progress."
He said in the interview that he would formulate a "specific response" to recent events in the Middle East once Mitchell has reported back to him...
Meanwhile, Former President Jimmy Carter said Monday that Israel will face a "catastrophe" unless it revives the Mideast peace process and establishes an independent Palestinian state...
In an interview with The Associated Press, he said Arabs will outnumber Jews in the Holy Land in the foreseeable future...
"If we look toward a one-state solution, which seems to be the trend - I hope not inexorable - it would be a catastrophe for Israel, because there would be only three options in that case," Carter said,
One would be to expel large numbers of Palestinians, which he said would amount to "ethnic cleansing."
The second would be to deprive the Palestinians of equal voting rights, which he said would amount to "apartheid."
The third would be to give the Palestinians equal voting rights, and therefore the majority, he said...
"And you would no longer have a Jewish state," Carter said. "The basic decisions would be made by the Palestinians, who would almost very likely vote in a bloc, whereas you would have some sharp divisions among the Israelis, because the Israelis always have different points of view."
Carter spoke to The Associated Press as his new book, "We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land," was released...
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