Obama to Speak From Egypt in Address to Muslim World

Obama to Speak From Egypt in Address to Muslim World
By HELENE COOPER
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: May 8, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/09/world/middleeast/09prexy.html?scp=1&sq=obama%20to%20speak%20in%20cairo&st=cse


WASHINGTON — The White House finally revealed on Friday the country from which President Obama will make his much anticipated speech to the Muslim world: Egypt.

Though White House officials would not say exactly where in Egypt the speech would be given, the White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said on Friday that Mr. Obama would deliver the speech there on June 4, two days before he goes to Normandy, France, for events commemorating the 65th anniversary of D-Day.

“I think having spent part of his childhood in Indonesia, I think all of this gives the president the opportunity, hopefully, to extend a hand to those that, in many ways, are like us but just simply have a different religion,” Mr. Gibbs said. Mr. Obama promised during the campaign that he would make a speech from a Muslim capital in the first 100 days in office, so the speech would fall slightly outside that time frame. However, White House officials would not confirm on Friday that the speech would be in Cairo.

In making such a high-profile address to the Muslim world from Egypt, Mr. Obama is wading straight into the center of the storm of the United States’ turbulent relations with the Muslim world.

Egypt, under President Hosni Mubarak, has a fractured democratic process; opponents of Mr. Mubarak have been imprisoned, and some democracy advocates have been harassed. But the country is also the traditional intellectual center of the Arab world, as well as an important barometer of Arab street sentiment. Because of the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood, a banned but tolerated social and political movement that has been embraced by much of the Islamic world, Egypt is also a place where Mr. Obama can try to woo disenfranchised and disaffected young Arabs.

Egypt is a “country that in many ways represents the heart of the Arab world, and I think it will be a terrific opportunity for the president to address and discuss our relationship with the Muslim world,” Mr. Gibbs said. Mr. Obama’s father was a Muslim, although Mr. Obama has been a practicing Christian for years.

Mr. Obama took his first attempt at addressing a Muslim population last month in Ankara, Turkey, making a well-received speech to the Turkish Parliament in which he drew on his own background.

“The United States has been enriched by Muslim-Americans,” Mr. Obama said in the speech. “Many other Americans have Muslims in their family, or have lived in a Muslim-majority country. I know, because I am one of them.”

He told the Turkish legislators that America’s relationship with the Muslim world had to be about more than just opposition to terrorism.

Egypt will give him an opportunity to do the same thing, except on a much larger scale.

Administration officials said Secret Service agents were already on the ground in Egypt, preparing for the trip. The country has been the scene of several terrorist attacks in recent years.