US ‘priority’ is to repair Muslim relations

US PRESIDENT Barack Obama held up his boyhood home of Indonesia as an example to the Muslim world in a speech yesterday in which he said America was not at war with Islam but acknowledged it was hard to eradicate “years of mistrust”.

“Relations between the United States and Muslim communities have frayed over many years... I have made it a priority to begin to repair these relations,” he told a crowd of thousands in Jakarta, capital of the world’s most populous Muslim nation.

“I have made it clear that America is not, and never will be, at war with Islam. Instead, all of us must defeat al-Qaida and its affiliates, who have no claim to be leaders of any religion – certainly not a great, world religion like Islam.”