Obama To Visit Indonesia In November

UNITED NATIONS - President Barack Obama said on Thursday he will make his twice-postponed trip to Indonesia in November, making good on a promise to travel to the Muslim-majority nation where he lived as a boy.

Obama called off previous plans to make his first visit to Indonesia as president due to his ultimately successful drive to pass health care reform and then over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

The visit will allow Obama to speak directly to the Islamic world in the world's largest Muslim-majority country, following rows over plans to build a Muslim cultural center in New York and a US pastor's canceled plans to burn Korans.

It will also be a homecoming of sorts, as Obama lived in the country for four years as a boy with his late mother, and has often spoken fondly of his memories of that time.

The president noted in a speech Thursday to the UN General Assembly that he had already announced plans to visit India in November, adding that "I will continue to Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-majority country."

Obama, who, as a native of Hawaii, has billed himself as America's first Pacific President, will then make previously scheduled trips to South Korea and Japan.

The president had intended to travel on to Australia during the two previously postponed visits to Indonesia, but there are no plans to make that visit in November.

Obama's trip to Indonesia in November will be another clear sign of his intention to improve US ties with the region, and will come after Friday's US summit here with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

In Indonesia, Obama will stress the country's emerging economic weight and the role of the world's most populous Muslim nation in battling extremism, as well as to build on his speech to the Muslim world in Cairo last year.

AFP

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