Obama Campaign Unveils Details of Overseas Trip

Barack Obama's campaign on Friday unveiled details of the presidential candidate's upcoming trip overseas, outlining the series of meetings he plans to hold with foreign heads of state while denying charges that the trip is a global campaign swing.

FOXNews.com

Friday, July 18, 2008

Barack Obama's campaign on Friday unveiled details of the presidential candidate's upcoming trip overseas, outlining the series of meetings he plans to hold with foreign heads of state while denying charges that the trip is a global campaign swing.

Aides to the Illinois senator said Obama has no intention of making policy overseas or stepping into the role of president and that he only intends to discuss ways to enhance "cooperation" between the United States and its allies.

"The broad goals of the trip are to deepen, even further, important relationships and to exchange views with the leaders in several countries whose partnership with the United States is really critical to our national security," foreign policy adviser Susan Rice said on a conference call with reporters.

"It is important to note that it is not our intent to make policy or to negotiate. We won't do so. There is one president of the United States at any given time and we will certainly honor and respect that."

While aides to John McCain on Thursday accused Obama of making a purely political voyage, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said, "The trip is not at all a campaign trip -- a rally of any sort."

He called it a series of "substantive meetings" with U.S. allies.

The campaign did not get into specific dates or locations, other than to restate it would include stops in France, Great Britain, Germany and Jordan. Aides would not confirm reports that he would visit the West Bank.

They said, however, he would meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salaam Fayad.

Obama also plans to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Israeli President Shimon Peres, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Jordanian King Abdullah and several other foreign officials.

The campaign stressed that Obama would ask these countries to help the United States should he become president and redirect military resources to Afghanistan.

Foreign policy adviser Denis McDonough said Obama also would not speak at the historic Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, an appearance that was floated and apparently caused concern among German officials.

"We are looking at a variety of locations in Germany and will pick one that we believe meets our needs and also the needs of our German hosts," he said. "The one thing that Barack made clear to us very early is that he didn't think it made sense at all for him to speak at the Brandenburg Gate, which he thought would be perhaps too presumptuous."

FOX News' Bonney Kapp contributed to this report.

 

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