Trump to address 'crisis of Islamist extremism', but 'not here to lecture'

"This is not a battle between different faiths, different sects, or different civilizations," but "a battle between good and evil".

Trump to address 'crisis of Islamist extremism', but 'not here to lecture'

US president Donald Trump will tell Muslim leaders that stamping out terror threats will require "honestly confronting the crisis of Islamist extremism and the Islamist terror groups it inspires".

In excerpts released by the White House ahead of his speech on Sunday, Mr Trump will call for unity across the Muslim world in the fight against terrorism.

He will tell an audience of leaders of Muslim-majority countries that he is "not here to lecture" and "not here to tell other people how to live, what to do, who to be, or how to worship".

"This is not a battle between different faiths, different sects, or different civilizations," but "a battle between good and evil", he will say.

Mr Trump often used anti-Islamic rhetoric during his presidential campaign and repeatedly stressed the need to say the words "radical Islamic terrorism." That phrase was missing from a draft of the speech obtained by The Associated Press.

His speech, the centrepiece of his two-day visit to Saudi Arabia, will address the leaders of 50 Muslim-majority countries and comes amid a renewed courtship of the United States' Arab allies as the president held individual meetings with leaders of several nations, including Egypt and Qatar.

He was then participating in round table talks with the Gulf Cooperation Council before joining Saudi King Salman in opening Riyadh's new anti-terrorism centre.

A meeting with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi underscored the kinship, with Mr Trump saluting his counterpart on the April release of Egyptian-American charity worker Aya Hijazi, who had been detained in the country for nearly three years.

Mr El-Sissi invited Mr Trump to visit him in Egypt, adding: "You are a unique personality that is capable of doing the impossible." As the participants laughed, Mr Trump responded: "I agree."

In a meeting with the king of Bahrain, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, Mr Trump said the two countries "have a wonderful relationship" but "there has been a little strain" and vowed to improve things further.

He did not specify what tension he needed to resolve. The two countries have had a long-term military alliance, though the US was critical of Bahrain's response to uprisings during the Arab Spring.

Mr Trump's prepared address also notably refrains from mentioning democracy and human rights - topics Arab leaders often view as US moralising - in favour of the more limited goals of peace and stability.

- AP

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