Obama to visit Turkey

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President Barack Obama is planning a trip to Turkey as part of his administration's ongoing outreach to the Muslim world, a senior administration official said this morning.

The trip is meant to continue dialogue with leaders in Muslim countries, the official said. But it will not include the speech from a Muslim capital that Obama spoke of during his presidential campaign.

"Planning for the Turkey visit is just the beginning," the official said. "It will be an important opportunity to visit a NATO ally and discuss shared challenges."

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President Obama will visit Turkey at the end of his European trip next month, a decision that reflects the moderate Muslim nation's central place in his emerging diplomatic approach to the Islamic world.

Obama's stop in Turkey, announced yesterday in Ankara by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, partly fulfills Obama's pledge to engage the Muslim world in a substantive way within his first 100 days in office. But the president is not expected to use the Turkey visit to deliver his anticipated address on Islam, a speech he promised during his campaign to give in a Muslim capital soon after taking office.

Turkey's place on his itinerary gives the young administration more time on the Muslim speech as Obama begins new diplomatic efforts with Syria and Iran, regional Muslim powers isolated for years by the George W. Bush administration. The visit extends the administration's public-relations campaign toward Islamic nations that began when Obama gave his first television interview as president to an Arabic satellite channel, a signal, administration officials said, of a new approach toward a population dismayed by U.S. policy in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories.