OBAMA ENDS TURKISH VISIT WITH STUDENT TOWN HALL
By Mark S. Smith
AP
7 April 09
ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) — Barack Obama wrapped up his first foreign
trip as president with a request of the world: Look past his nation’s
stereotypes and flaws. "You will find a partner and a friend in the
United States of America," he declared Tuesday.
"The world will be what you make of it," Obama told college students
in Turkey’s largest city. "You can choose to make new bridges instead
of new walls."
Promising a "new chapter in American engagement" with the rest of
the world, Obama said the United States needs to be more patient in
its dealings. And he said the rest of the world needs a better sense
"that change is possible so we don’t have to always be stuck with
the same arguments."
The students formed a tight circle around the new U.S. president,
who slowly paced a sky-blue rug while answering their questions. He
promised to end the town hall-style session before the Muslim call
to prayer.
Obama rejected the "stereotype" that Americans are selfish and
crass. "I’m here to tell you that’s not the country I know and not
the country I love," the president said. "America, like every other
nation, has made mistakes and has its flaws, but for more than two
centuries it has strived" to seek a more perfect union.
He repeated his pledge to rebuild relations between the United States
and the=2 0Muslim world.
"I am personally committed to a new chapter in American engagement,"
Obama said. "We can’t afford to talk past one another and focus only
on our differences, or to let the walls of mistrust go up around us."
The questions were polite and rarely bracing, though one student
asked whether there was any real difference between his White House
and the Bush administration. Obama cautioned that while he had great
differences with Bush over issues such as Iraq and climate change,
it takes time to change a nation as big as the United States.
"Moving the ship of state is a slow process," he said.
The Turkish stop capped an eight-day European trip that senior adviser
David Axelrod called "enormously productive" — including an economic
crisis summit in London and a NATO conclave in France and Germany.
Axelrod said specific benefits might be a while in coming. "You plant,
you cultivate, you harvest," he told reporters. "Over time, the seeds
that were planted here are going to be very, very valuable."
Picking up on his consultant’s theme later, Obama told the college
students he sees nothing wrong with setting his sights high on goals
such as mending relations with Iran and eliminating the world of
nuclear options — two cornerstone issues of his trip.
"Some people say that maybe I’m being too idealistic," Obama said. "But
if we don’t try, if we don’t reach high, we won’t make any20progress."
Obama’s final day in Turkey also featured a meeting with religious
leaders and stops at top tourist sites in this city on the Bosporus
that spans Europe and Asia. Accompanied by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, he toured the Hagia Sophia museum and the Blue Mosque.
At the Blue Mosque, just across a square and manicured gardens
from Hagia Sophia, the president padded, shoeless like his entire
entourage in accordance with religious custom, across the carpeted
mosque interior. All around were intricate stained-glass windows and
a series of domes, thick columns and walls entirely covered in blue,
red and white tile mosaic.
Again, he appeared to speak little, as he was schooled in what he
was seeing by a guide. He spent about 40 minutes at both places.
At his Istanbul hotel, Obama met with Istanbul’s grand mufti and
its chief rabbi, as well as Turkey’s Armenian patriarch and Syrian
Orthodox archbishop.
In many respects, Obama’s European trip was a continental listening
tour.
He told the G-20 summit in London that global cooperation is the key
to ending a crippling recession. And at the NATO summit in France and
Germany, he said his new strategy for Afghanistan reflects extensive
consultation.
In Ankara, Turkey’s capital, Obama told lawmakers their country can
help ensure Muslims and the West listen to each other.