10 Dec : US President-elect Barack Obama says that he plans to send a strong message to the world on how his incoming administration will be "unyielding in stamping out the terrorist extremism we saw in Mumbai."
"The message I want to send is that we will be unyielding in stamping out the terrorist extremism we saw in Mumbai," Obama said in an interview to Chicago Tribune.
Stating that he had an "unique" chance to recalibrate America’s ties with the rest of the world, Obama, who will be sworn-in on January 20 as the 44th US President, says that he would travel to the capital of an Islamic nation to make a "major speech."
Obama, 47, who would be the first black-American President in US history, said he plans to give a major address in an Islamic capital as part of his global outreach. He did not identify the country or the city.
"The country must take advantage of a unique chance to recalibrate relations around the globe, through a new diplomacy that emphasises inclusiveness and tolerance as well as an unflinching stand against terrorism," he said.
Obama this week said India had the right to self- defence if attacked.
"If a country is attacked, it has a right to defend itself," he told the US channel NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ programme when asked whether India could carry out hot pursuit of Pakistani militants over the border.
Obama, who called for a "strategic partnership" with India, Pakistan and Afghanistan against terrorism, has in the past said the US reserved the right to strike the Pakistan-based militants if Islamabad failed to end militancy in its restive tribal areas from where regular attacks on American-led forces operating in neighbouring Afghanistan were launched.