Obama pledges closer US ties with Muslim world

US President Barack Obama has renewed his commitment to regaining the trust of the Islamic world. He was speaking at a US summit on Muslim entrepreneurship in Washington.

President Obama said that the US will set up a series of new partnerships and initiatives, including exchange programs with business people throughout the Muslim world.

Political writer Brent Budowsky thinks Barack Obama is like a pioneer in tackling the issue among US presidents.

“The president has to work his way to Iraq and Afghanistan as everyone knows the president has to work his way through some disagreements with Israel right now, as do the Israelis with the Palestinians, as does the US with everyone in the Muslim world,” he said.

“What the president is doing in good faith, the first president to do this, is to try to offer an outreach to the Muslim world, to try to offer the hope of a better life for people in the Muslim world, and to put himself on the line, in a way other presidents haven’t, to say that we want to share the world community with Muslims and we want to share an American community with Muslim Americans,” Budowsky added.