Obama in Cairo for landmark speech

Barack Obama, the US president, has arrived in Cairo to deliver a keynote address that lays out his vision for a new US partnership with the Muslim world. Obama met Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, on Thursday, as he seeks to reignite a new diplomatic era in the Arab world.
"We discussed the issue of Israel and the Palestinians and how we can move forward in a constructive way that will bring about peace and prosperity for everyone in the region," Obama said at the end of his talks with Mubarak. Obama's speech is set to take place at 10:00 GMT on the campus of Cairo University, one of the oldest secular institutions of higher learning in the Arab world. James Bays, Al Jazeera's correspondent reporting from Cairo, said extensive security arrangements including tight cordons around sites the US president would visit, are in place in the Egyptian capital. "It's very much an invited audience, security is extremely tight and one of the opposition newspapers today, in its front page said that Obama is arriving in Egypt but Egypt has been evacuated. "Parts of the city have been closed down and other parts have been given a major facelift. They have been washing and painting and cleaning all the routes in which the president will travel as he moves to the various events across Cairo and then to the pyramids," Bays said. Egyptian media reported that refurbishments of the Cairo University alone cost over $2.4m. US officials said on Wednesday that Obama would talk candidly about a range of issues that had "caused tensions between the US and the Muslim world."
Ben Rhodes, Obama's 31-year-old foreign policy speechwriter, said: "He will discuss in some detail his view on the conflict and what needs to be done to resolve it.
"He will discuss both what that means in terms of Israelis and Palestinians and the United States and the Arab states as well," he said. Ostensibly, the address is part of a broader effort by Obama to rewrite US foreign policy that under George Bush, his predecessor, alienated allies and fuelled a wave of anti-Americanism in the Muslim world. The US president's choice of Cairo underscores his focus on Muslims in the Middle East, where he faces some of his biggest foreign policy challenges. Obama is also seeking to build a coalition of moderate Muslim governments to support his efforts to revive stalled Middle East peace talks and help the US curb Iran's nuclear programme. How well Obama's 45-minute speech - to be simultaneously translated in 13 different languages - is received would largely depend on what he says about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the issue the Muslim world cares most about. Muslims view the United States as uncritically pro-Israel. Our correspondent said that expectations on the streets about Obama's speech were high. "A lot of people here, however, are very positive about Obama himself and remember the campaign slogans of change and they believe he’s a man who might want to bring change but they’re not sure Obama alone can do that alone." The US president arrived in Cairo from Saudi Arabia, where he held talks with King Abdullah on issues like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Washington's overtures to Iran and oil. "I thought it was very important to come to the place where Islam began and to seek his majesty's counsel and discuss with him many of the issues that we confront here in the Middle East," Obama said before the talks on Wednesday. The meeting came as al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden accused Obama of "antagonising Muslims" in a tape broadcast by Al Jazeera.