Feb 1, 2010
Obama plans travel to Indonesia, Australia
Washington - US President Barack Obama will travel to Indonesia in March to broaden relations as part of his plan to reach out to the Muslim world, the White House said Monday.
Obama plans to visit the Southeast Asian nation with the world's largest Muslim population in the second half of March. He will also travel to Australia to celebrate 70 years of formal diplomatic relations.
He will be accompanied by wife Michelle and daughters Malia and Sasha, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
Obama spent part of his childhood in Indonesia and the trip will be somewhat of a homecoming for the president. He's likely visit his former neighbourhood in Jakarta, Gibbs said.
While in Indonesia Obama will launch an initiative to strengthen relations to partner in addressing regional and global issues, Gibbs said.
In Australia Obama planned to discuss the global economic recovery, climate change and the war in Afghanistan with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd Gibbs said.
Rudd's office also announced the visit.
'President Obama will be a most welcome guest in Australia on his first official visit,' Rudd said in a statement.
'Australia's relationship with the United States of America is our most important international partnership. We are allies, we are trading partners, and we cooperate on the international challenges confronting all nations,' Rudd said.
Updated ~
Obama plans travel to Indonesia, Australia
Washington - US President Barack Obama will travel to Indonesia in March to broaden relations as part of his plan to reach out to the Muslim world, the White House said Monday.
Obama plans to visit the Southeast Asian nation with the world's largest Muslim population in the second half of March. He will also travel to Australia to celebrate 70 years of formal diplomatic relations.
He will be accompanied by wife Michelle and daughters Malia and Sasha, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
Obama spent part of his childhood in Indonesia and the trip will be somewhat of a homecoming for the president. He's likely visit his former neighbourhood in Jakarta, Gibbs said.
While in Indonesia Obama will launch an initiative to strengthen relations to partner in addressing regional and global issues, Gibbs said.
In Australia Obama planned to discuss the global economic recovery, climate change and the war in Afghanistan with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd Gibbs said.
Rudd's office also announced the visit.
'President Obama will be a most welcome guest in Australia on his first official visit,' Rudd said in a statement.
'Australia's relationship with the United States of America is our most important international partnership. We are allies, we are trading partners, and we cooperate on the international challenges confronting all nations,' Rudd said.
Updated ~
Indonesia trip 'no vacation' for Obama
Mar 11, 2010
President Barack Obama's trip next week to his childhood home of Indonesia will be no vacation and is unlikely to be delayed by his health reform drive, the White House said Thursday.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama, who is expected to leave the United States next Thursday, would attend a democracy promotion conference and highlight counter-terrorism measures during the visit to Indonesia.
Obama will also seek to use his stay in the world's most populous Muslim nation to build off a speech he gave last year to the Islamic world from Cairo urging for improved ties with the United States, Gibbs said.
Asked whether the family journey to Indonesia, where Obama spent four years as a boy, and Australia, was intended as an educational trip or a vacation for his daughters Malia and Sasha, Gibbs answered "not at all."
Gibbs also said there were no current plans to delay the trip, should lawmakers fail to satisfy the White House's hopes for a crucial House of Representatives vote on the health care bill by March 18.
"The president believes it is an extremely important trip, it's an important region of the world, and these are important partners," Gibbs said.
"Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world, obviously has seen, as many countries including ours have seen, the impacts of horrific terrorist activities.
"Australia is a country we enjoy a trade surplus with, something the president is anxious to highlight, as well as a strong supporter of ours in providing support for Afghanistan."
Obama, who lived in Jakarta with his late mother Ann Dunham in the 1960s, said last year in Singapore that he was looking forward to visiting his old haunts in Indonesia.
He was invited to make the trip by Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and both sides have said they plan to use Obama's childhood ties to the country to further tighten a crucial pan-Pacific relationship.
Source: AFP American Edition
