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Obama calls for US/Germany partnership

24/07/2008

US presidential hopeful Barack Obama has used a speech in Berlin to call for greater partnership between the US and Germany.

Speaking in the German capital on Tuesday evening, he said it is vital that the US and Europe do not "turn inward" in the face of challenges but instead work together to target terrorism, climate change and the development of nuclear weapons.

Mr Obama is in Germany on the latest leg of his world tour ahead of November's US presidential elections.

The Illinois senator met with chancellor Angela Merkel and foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

But he pledged that he wanted to make his speech not as a candidate for president but as a "proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world".

Mr Obama highlighted the links between the US and Germany since the second world war and said that the countries now face "new peril".

"In this new world, dangerous currents have swept along faster than our efforts to contain them," he said.

"That is why we cannot afford to be divided. No one nation, no matter how large or powerful, can defeat such challenges alone.

"None of us can deny these threats, or escape responsibility in meeting them. If we're honest with each other, we know that sometimes, on both sides of the Atlantic, we have drifted apart, and forgotten our shared destiny."

He added: "Partnership and cooperation among nations is not a choice; it is the one way, the only way, to protect our common security and advance our common humanity."