Obama also credited German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was sitting in the audience, for welcoming refugees.
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160-a-14-(Ben Rhodes, White House deputy national security adviser, at news conference)-“ground in Syria”-White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes says the additional USA commandos the president’s sending into Syria will help local groups build on recent gains against Islamic State militants”.
On Monday, Obama will again speak from Germany in an address that represents his most significant effort to date to help shape the historical narrative of his presidency.
One of the officials emphasized the plan calls for the additional USA forces to “advise and assist” forces in the area whom the US hopes may eventually grow strong enough to take back territory around Raqqa, Syria, where ISIS is based.
“Make no mistake”, Mr Obama said.
Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, said the initial 50-person team in Syria has been effective at helping the local forces. But he says the global community must keep up sanctions on Russian Federation until it fully implements its commitments under a Ukraine deal struck in Minsk.
“It’s a necessity for the United States because Europe’s security and prosperity is inherently indivisible from our own”, he said.
He said that every North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member should be contributing “its full share – 2% of GDP – towards our common security – something that doesn’t always happen”.
Obama’s announcement is intended serve as an example of how the U.S.is willing to commit its own resources to the global goal of bringing the Syrian civil war to an end.
Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said in a press briefing ahead of the president’s speech that USA special forces in Syria were already making a difference and that the additional personnel would act as a critical “force multiplier”.
“We want to accelerate that progress”, through the commitment of additional forces, Rhodes said.
The president said Europe generally could do more to prepare for its own defence and to fight Islamic State. Following the meeting, the USA president boarded Air Force One and left Germany. He did not hide his disdain for Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, who has proposed setting up a wall on the USA border with Mexico and temporarily banning Muslims from entering the United States.
The president insisted that USA forces would be mostly confined to training local ground forces in Syria fighting ISIS as well as providing intelligence on the extremist group in strongholds like the city of Raqqa. He said there was a danger it could create an “us-versus-them” outlook that would foster bad feeling toward immigrants, Muslims and others. Obama says that’s the kind of politics that the European system was set up to work against.
Rising tensions with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab monarchies, which have privately criticized the Obama administration’s security policy toward the region, also have complicated the US effort in Syria.
Meanwhile, the USTR labeled the TTIP deal as “an ambitious, comprehensive, and high standard trade and investment agreement” that will “help unlock opportunity for American families, workers, businesses, farmers and ranchers through increased access to European markets”.
The tour opens Obama’s final day of a six-day, three-country trip.
The migrant crisis was a central focus as Obama met with European leaders just before returning to Washington.
President Barack Obama is something of a technology geek and he is in his element at the Hannover Messe.
And Obama has tried on virtual reality glasses made with what developer Ifm Stiftung dubs the smallest 3D camera in the world.
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He says, “It’s a courageous new world”.
