US President Donald Trump is to urge the Islamic world to confront extremism in a highly anticipated speech Sunday to dozens of Muslim leaders in Saudi Arabia.
Aides have said the speech, given in the cradle of Islam, will be “uplifting” but also “blunt” in its call for leaders of Muslim countries to take a stand against violent fundamentalism.
It comes on the second day of a visit to Saudi Arabia, part of an eight-day foreign tour — Trump’s first since taking office — that will take him next to Israel and the Palestinian Territories and then to Europe.
The first day saw the announcement of hundreds of billions of dollars in trade deals — welcome news for Trump as he faces mounting troubles at home linked with the probe into alleged Russian meddling during last year’s election campaign.
Among the agreements was an arms deal worth almost $110 billion with Saudi Arabia, described as the largest in US history, which US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said was aimed in particular at countering “malign Iranian influence”.
The White House has sought to draw a clear distinction during the visit with Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama, who Saudi Arabia and its Sunni Arab allies saw as lecturing and soft on their Shiite rival Iran.
Unlike the Obama administration which would often raise concerns over civil liberties with longstanding Arab allies, Trump has made no mention of human rights during his visit so far.
He is unlikely to do so in his speech, focusing instead on a centrepiece of his foreign policy: tackling jihadism and its disciples like the Islamic State group and Al-Qaeda.
“He will deliver an inspiring, direct speech on the need to confront radical ideology and the president’s hopes for a peaceful vision of Islam,” Trump’s influential national security adviser, HR McMaster, said ahead of the visit.
“He’ll talk about what unites us in uplifting terms,” a White House official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“But he’ll also be very blunt in talking about the need to confront extremism and the fact that many in the Muslim world have not only not done enough, they’ve actively abetted this extremism, even as some of them have talked a good game on the surface but in quiet, continue to fund extremism.”
The speech has been touted as a major event — along the lines of a landmark address to the Islamic world given by Obama in Cairo in 2009.
It will be especially sensitive given tensions sparked by the Trump administration’s attempted travel ban targeting several Muslim-majority nations and accusations of anti-Islamic rhetoric.
