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BERLIN: US presidential hopeful
Barack Obama on Thursday kicked off a European tour in Berlin,
saying he wanted to signal a fresh start in transatlantic ties from
the city where the Cold War was won.
Obama, who
arrived from Israel, met first with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
He was also to see Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and
Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit before making a foreign policy speech in
front of an expected crowd of tens of thousands.
The presumptive
Democratic candidate said he wanted the United States and Europe to
rediscover their common ground.
“There is no
doubt that part of what I want to communicate on both sides of the
Atlantic is the enormous potential of us restoring a sense of coming
together,” he told reporters on the plane.
The Illinois
senator sought to tamp down expectations he would reach the
rhetorical heights of late president John F. Kennedy’s “Ich bin
ein Berliner” vow to the then-divided city in 1963, or former
Republican president Ronald Reagan resonant call in 1987 to “Tear
down this wall.”
“They were
presidents, I am a citizen,” he said.
Obama defended
himself against claims he is defying convention by electioneering
abroad, saying he wanted to speak to the whole of Europe so he
needed a big venue.
Germans have
followed the US election campaign intensely. The vast majority—76
percent, according to one recent poll—would vote for Obama if they
could, versus just 10 percent for his Republican rival John McCain.
-- AFP
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