Obama trip an outreach to Muslim world

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, June 3 (UPI) -- U.S. President Barack Obama said Wednesday he wanted to begin his Mideast tour in Saudi Arabia "the place where Islam began."

Obama was in Riyadh to conduct bilateral talks with King Abdullah before traveling to Cairo to deliver a major speech Thursday to the Muslim community.

"I thought it was very important to come to the place where Islam began and to seek His Majesty's counsel and to discuss with him many of the issues that we confront here in the Middle East," Obama said in a joint media availability with the Saudi monarch.

Noting the long friendship between the United States and Saudi Arabia, Obama said, "I'm confident that working together the United States and Saudi Arabia can make progress on a whole host of issues and mutual interests."

Abdullah extended his best wishes "to the friendly American people who are represented by a distinguished man who deserves to be in this position."

Obama is using the trip and speech to show the United States is pursuing "a different relationship" with the Muslim community, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said during a briefing Tuesday. "We have more in common than we have disagreement about, and I think that's what he wants to ensure that the vast majority of the Muslim world hears."

Middle East expert Mamoun Fandy, a Baker Institute for Public Policy senior fellow, told CNN Muslims want action, not rhetoric.

Muslims want to hear that Obama "is very serious about solving the Israeli-Arabian problem, that he is very serious about engaging the Muslim world on the basis of recognizing the equality," Fandy said.