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US President Obama Meets Old Europe Against Backdrop Of WWII Sites

PARIS (AFP)--President Barack Obama is this week to meet the leaders of what the previous U.S. administration dismissed as "Old Europe" to discuss very modern crises against the backdrop of Second World War sites.

He will arrive Friday in the reborn German city of Dresden, razed by Allied bombers in the war, to meet Chancellor Angela Merkel for talks on Iran, the Middle East, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the global economic crisis.

While in Germany he will also see Buchenwald to pay tribute to thousands of victims of its Nazi death camp and to his own ancestor, Charlie Payne, who took part in the liberation of the camp as a U.S. infantry soldier.

On the 65th anniversary of the D-day Allied landings in Normandy Saturday, Obama will meet French President Nicolas Sarkozy and attend a ceremony at a U.S. war cemetery.

U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Prince Charles and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, will also attend the commemoration at the Colleville-sur-Mer, which overlooks the U.S. landing zone dubbed Omaha Beach.

Today U.S., U.K., French, German, Canadian and other troops are fighting side- by-side under North Atlantic Treaty Organization command in Afghanistan against the Taliban, and Obama is keen to bind the allies into his new strategy.

Under the new president, the U.S. force in Afghanistan has almost doubled, while France and the U.K. have only edged up their participation and Germany has kept its small contingent away from the heaviest combat.

"We need military support for the elections, for basic security in many of these villages. We have been there in the villages, a lot of troops. We expect all our NATO partners to do that," Obama said Tuesday.

"But that is not all the contribution we need to make. We also need agricultural specialists, we need gendarmes to train the police, and we need people who understand water systems and electrical systems."

Other weighty issues under discussion will include Iran's alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons, where European capitals have joined Washington in pushing for tougher sanctions against the Islamic republic.

France and Germany famously fell out with Obama's predecessor George W. Bush over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction - which turned out not to exist - but Europe has been much tougher with Iran.

  (END) Dow Jones Newswires
  06-03-090539ET
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