Obama´s first formal speech outside US, urging transatlantic ties

Source: CCTV.com | 07-25-2008 09:13

U.S. Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama is continuing his European tour.

US Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama (R) and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier take part in a photocall at the Foreign Ministry in Berlin.(AFP)

Speaking in Germany on Thursday, Obama called for stronger ties across the Atlantic Ocean. Obama made the call during a speech in front of more than 100-thousand people in Tiergarten, a park not far from where the Berlin Wall once divided the city.

This is his first formal speech outside the United States. The Illinois Senator urged Europe and the United States to work together to "defeat terror" and "dry up the well of extremism that supports it."

US Democratic presidential hopeful, Barack Obama, waves as he arrives to make a speech in front of the Victory Column in Berlin.(AFP)

Obama also said Iran should "abandon" its nuclear ambition and called for a world without nuclear weapons -- drawing widespread cheers from the crowd.

Obama said he was speaking as a citizen and not as a president. But local media compared his speech to historical speeches in the same place by U.S. Presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.

Editor:Zhang Yue