US President Barack Obama laid a key plank of his strategy to mend ties with the Islamic world on Monday hosting a summit to boost economic development in Muslim nations. In a step the White House hopes will help shift relations beyond decades of talk about terrorism and conflict, Obama brought entrepreneurs from 50 countries to Washington for two days to spur economic ties.
The president pledged to host the meeting in a landmark speech in Cairo last June, when he also called for a "new beginning" to relations between the United States and the Muslim world.
Opening the meeting, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said boosting Muslim business would not only help the Islamic world, but would also help US security and trade.
"There are over a billion people living in Muslim-majority countries today, and they represent a vast reserve of under-utilized potential in the global economy," Locke told delegates.
"It is very much in America's -- and indeed, the entire world's -- interest that you succeed."
"Strong and balanced international trade only works if countries have growing economies and a growing middle class that are fully engaged in the international marketplace."
Speaking ahead of the meeting, a senior administration official said there were also hard-headed political goals to the summit.
"One of the principal goals of that vision was to broaden our relationship, which has been dominated by a few different issues, a small set of issues, for at least the last decade, and going back further than that."
"We don't see this as a replacement for our work on things like Middle East peace or work on counter-terrorism, our work on Iran. We see this as part of establishing a more multifaceted set of relationships. It is yet another pillar."
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