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Obama pledges new US relations with Europe

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-04-04 00:19

In Germany, Merkel said her country wants to bear its share of the responsibility in Afghanistan, and Obama thanked her for what Germany already has done.

But Obama also said: "We do exect that all NATO partners are going to contribute. They have thus far, but the progress in some cases has been uneven." He added, "We're going to refocus the strategy and then make sure the resources are there to do it."

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Earlier in France, the president said he wants to look back at his tenure and know his work drastically lessened the threat of terrorism, particularly nuclear terrorism.

"We can't reduce the threat of a nuclear weapon going off unless those that possess the most nuclear weapons, the United States and Russia, take serious steps to reduce our stockpiles," Obama said. "So we want to pursue that vigorously in the years ahead."

Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev earlier this week pledged a new effort to both nations' nuclear arsenals.

Touching on topics controversial in Europe, Obama also promoted his decision to close the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay within a year, and said "without equivocation that the United States does not and will not torture."

Earlier, in a symbolic gesture, French President Nicolas Sarkozy told Obama that France would accept a prisoner from the detention center where terrorist suspects are held if that would facilitate its closing.

Saying that he was determined to "speak the truth," Sarkozy said that Guantanamo "was not in keeping with US values." He said democratic states have a responsibility to speak honestly and do what they say, and that Guantanamo was a contradiction in that standard.

Obama said the US needs help in finding a place to send those held at the center. He thanked Sarkozy for "being good to his word."

About 240 detainees are still held, some without charge, at the Guantanamo Bay prison, which was set up after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to hold so-called "enemy combatants" accused of links to the al-Qaida terror network or the Taliban. Spain and Portugal have already said they could accept prisoners, while Germany and others remain tightlipped whether they will accept non-nationals.

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