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Obama to demand more from Europe in Berlin speech
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-07-24 23:04

BERLIN - US presidential candidate Barack Obama is expected to call on Europe to do more in hotspots like Afghanistan when he speaks in Berlin on Thursday in his only formal address of a week-long foreign tour.


US Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama (L) meets with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the Chancellery in Berlin July 24, 2008. [Agencies] 

Obama held talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel on issues ranging from the global economy, to Iran and Middle East peace after arriving in the German capital from Israel on a trip he hopes will burnish his foreign policy credentials and boost his election chances against Republican challenger John McCain.

In the evening he will speak at the "Victory Column" in Berlin's Tiergarten park, an address German media are comparing to former President John F. Kennedy's 1963 "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech. A crowd in the tens of thousands is expected.

In the 45-minute open-air appearance, Obama will ask Europe to shoulder more of the burden to help deal with global security threats, an aide to the Democratic senator told Reuters.

In Kabul on Sunday, Obama described the situation in Afghanistan as precarious and urgent. Both he and McCain have said Europe must step up its efforts there, but Merkel has said there are limits to what Germany, which already has plans to boost its troop numbers by 1,000 later this year, can do.

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"Hopefully (the speech) will be viewed as a substantive articulation of the relationship I'd like to see between the United States and Europe," Obama said before landing in Berlin.

Relations between the United States and Germany reached a post-war low under Merkel's predecessor Gerhard Schroeder, who strongly opposed the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

But the conservative Merkel, who grew up behind the Wall in the East, has worked hard to repair ties and emerged as one of President George W. Bush's closest allies in Europe.

A small crowd of people cheered Obama as he arrived at the Chancellery. He and Merkel, who were meeting for the first time, shook hands, smiled and made small talk before holding talks that a German spokesman said touched on Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Middle East peace, climate change and the global economy.

Brandenburg Gate debate

Merkel opposed the Obama campaign's initial plan to hold the speech at the Brandenburg Gate, the historic landmark that stood on the eastern side of the Berlin Wall for decades and became a potent symbol of the Cold War.

She has said the landmark -- where President Ronald Reagan famously urged Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall" -- is a place for presidents, not candidates to speak and her advisers tried to convince the Obama campaign to hold the speech at a university or other low-key location.

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