November 10, 2010
United States President Barack Obama and the first lady, Michelle Obama, walking with Grand Imam Yaqub during a visit to Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta on Wednesday. Obama is expected to deliver a speech on US-Indonesian relations in a follow-up to last year’s appeal to the Muslim world from Cairo at the University of Indonesia later today. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
Jakarta. President Barack Obama visited Southeast Asia’s biggest mosque on Wednesday as he prepared to deliver a speech on US-Indonesian relations in a follow-up to last year’s appeal to the Muslim world from Cairo.
Obama’s speech aims to engage Indonesians in their embrace of democracy and the free market following the fall of the Suharto dictatorship in 1998, as well as following on the themes of religious tolerance of his Cairo address.
The much-anticipated visit to the Istiqlal Mosque and speech at the University of Indonesia were the last stops on Obama’s twice-postponed visit to Indonesia.
Imam Haji Mustapha Ali Yaqub led Obama and First Lady Michelle — looking elegant in a silky flowing chartreuse pant suit and beige head covering adorned with gold beads — around the vast, domed structure in central Jakarta.
The Indonesia leg of Obama’s Asian tour is expected to be cut short as Obama tries to outrace a cloud of volcanic ash spewing out by Mount Merapi in Central Java, which has severely disrupted air travel across the region.
Obama arrived in Indonesia on Tuesday and told reporters he was “deeply moved” to return to the country of his childhood.
He marvelled at the transformation of the sleepy city of Jakarta he once knew into a bustling metropolis and noted the country’s parallel evolution from authoritarianism to democracy and a burgeoning alliance with Washington.
“It’s wonderful to be here although I have to tell you that when you visit a place that you spent time in as a child, as the president it’s a little disorientating,” he said. “The landscape has changed completely, when I first came here it was in 1967 and people were on becaks ... a bicycle rickshaw thing.”
Indonesia was the second stop on Obama’s Asia tour, after India, and he will travel on to South Korea for the G20 summit on Wednesday and end his trip in Yokohama, Japan for the APEC summit.
In Jakarta he admitted the task he set in last year’s Cairo speech of forging a “new beginning” with Islam remained incomplete and there was “a lot more work to do.”
“We don’t expect that we are going to completely eliminate some of the misunderstandings and mistrust that have developed over a long period of time, but we do think that we’re on the right path,” he told reporters at a joint press conference with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
Agence France-Presse
Source
.
No comments:
Post a Comment