Obama looks east in European tour

While there seem few concrete results from U.S. President Barack Obama's weeklong European tour, analysts say the visit represents a real change in the tone of trans-Atlantic relations, with an eye cast further east.

"The agenda was dominated by general relations between the United States and Europe and I wouldn't just say the EU," said Piotr Maciej Kaczynski, with the Brussels-based Centre for European Studies, alluding to overtures to Russia, NATO expansion into the Balkans and a growing international profile for Turkey. "There will clearly be greater cooperation on financial issues and climate change."

The sojourn began April 1 in London at the G20 summit, followed by the NATO summit in Strasbourg and the EU-U.S. summit in Prague. The final stop, Turkey, was Obama's first visit to a Muslim country, and seen by many as the most strategically significant to U.S. interests.

The G20 summit began amid anti-globalization protests and talk of divisions between the U.S. and Europe on fiscal stimulus to staunch global recession. It ended with participants pledging $1.1 trillion for global stimulus, a majority of which will be turned over to the International Monetary Fund.

The biggest headlines from London came from Obama's bilateral meetings with Chinese and Russian leaders, including a photo op with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in the first direct meeting between the two. Cutting nuclear arsenals, coordinating policy on Iran and the now-related proposal for a missile-defense shield in the Czech Republic and Poland were among the issues.

"The Americans have thrown the ball to the Russian side. We will have to see how they respond," said Petr Drulák, director of the Prague Institute for International Relations.

Obama also spoke in London with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a meeting critical for two of his next three stops.

After London, it was on to the NATO summit in the border region between France and Germany. France rejoined NATO's integrated military command, which they had abandoned in 1966. Croatia and Albania joined the military alliance, "moving forward stability in the Western Balkans," Kaczynski said.

Obama promoted a greater European troop commitment for Afghanistan. "The European commitment is still quite small," Drulák said. "On the American side, we are talking tens of thousands of soldiers; on the European side, we speak of thousands or even hundreds."

NATO anointed a new secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Danish prime minister until April 5, to replace the outgoing Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.

Though flagged as the strongest candidate, Rasmussen's appointment was strongly opposed by Turkey, which cited the 2005 Muhammed cartoon controversy, and his position backing the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten that published them.

"It seems Obama played a role in convincing the Turks," Drulák said.

In Prague, after meeting with Czech leaders and speaking publicly on Hradčanské náměstí, Obama moved on to an informal EU-U.S. summit at the Congress Centre.

Obama and his EU counterparts appeared to have exhausted much of their negotiating drive by April 5. The day was dominated by vague pledges of future collaboration, but Kaczynski said it offered a chance for Obama to meet with leaders such as Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, whose country is neither a NATO nor G20 member and is next in line to hold the EU's rotating presidency.

After broaching the climate change issue earlier during his speech, Obama and EU heads took things further, prompting European Commission President José Manuel Barroso to say, "We welcome the growing convergence between the European and American positions."

Obama pressed the EU to house Guantánamo detainees as the United States seeks to close the facility this year. He later ruffled some feathers by calling for Turkish EU accession. "It is not for the U.S. to decide who is and is not in the EU," Kaczynski said. "It does provoke a sharper debate that Europe is avoiding."

Turkey, where Obama arrived late April 5, has the second-largest standing army in NATO, trailing only the United States. It shares borders with Georgia, Iraq, Iran and Syria, and has cultural, linguistic and historic ties to much of Central Asia, a region of growing international competition with vast fossil fuel deposits.

Prior to the recent Israeli incursion into Gaza, Turkey had been mediating indirect negotiations between the Syrian and Israeli governments.

Erdogan stormed out of a debate with Israeli President Shimon Peres at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January, making himself a "larger-than-life hero in the Muslim world," said Lamis Khalilová, head of the Centre for Middle East Studies at the Metropolitan University of Prague.

"The United States is not and never will be at war with Islam," Obama said in a speech before the Turkish Parliament April 6, calling Turkey a "critical ally." Earlier, Obama pushed for Turkey to bridge gap between the Western and Islamic worlds.

"The Arab world is also watching very closely," Khalilová said.

Much as he did during his speech in Prague with references to First Czechoslovak Republic President Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, Obama paid tribute to Turkey's founding father Kemal Atatürk by laying a wreath at his gravesite.

"The U.S. is a global player," Kaczynski said. "What is relevant is the coverage of this visit in the Arab world."

Benjamin Cunningham can be reached at
bcunningham@praguepost.com