British PM seeks joint crisis front with Obama

Hurriyet Daily News with wires

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British Prime Minister Gordon Brown hopes to forge an alliance with U.S. President Barack Obama to combat the global financial crisis and reinforce what London calls its special relationship with Washington.

Brown will be the first European leader to meet Obama since he was inaugurated in January when they hold talks scheduled for today in Washington. He hopes cooperation over the economic crisis will mirror cooperation on security, in Iraq and Afghanistan.

British prime minister renewed his praise of Obama's "transformative" power, before heading for the U.S. capital yesterday. "I think the impression he has given of America to the world is transformative, because he is a black man who has won the presidency, who is living in the White House that was built by slaves," Agence France-Presse quoted him as saying.

"I think people's view of America is changing as a result of that," he told the talkSPORT radio station, adding that Obama was taking "very difficult" economic decisions. "He is doing similar things to what we are doing in Britain," he added.

Stronger partnership

Brown - who will host a summit of the Group of 20 developed and developing countries on April 2 - has said that during his trip he wants to strike a stronger "partnership of purpose" to fight the financial downturn.

Brown's spokesman said that the trip was essentially to discuss the economic crisis and to prepare the ground for the G20 meeting, but also "about strengthening the relationship" between the two men.

The leaders are also expected to press for greater help from other countries in fighting the insurgency in Afghanistan, although Brown's spokesman refused to be drawn on which nations they had in mind.

Meanwhile, political analysts told Reuters that Brown should limit his expectations of the visit, which comes at a time of anxiety in Britain over the relationship with Washington. They said Britain's ability to play a lead role is limited by the depth of its own economic crisis and a much broader alliance is needed than one between two countries whose policies have been partly blamed for the crisis. Washington's attention is increasingly on Asia rather than Europe, they argued.

Reginald Dale, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said Obama would listen to Brown, a former finance minister who was among the first western heads of government to propose a sweeping state rescue program to rescue crisis-hit banks and revive dwindling lending.

Nigel Bowles, director of Oxford University's Rothermere American Institute, said Brown and Obama were not in a position to control the agenda and the United States would have to look elsewhere for its most important partnership in coming decades.

"The agenda is one of financial crisis leeching into the real economy, and both of those elements ... have to be dealt with over the course of the next 18 to 24 months," he said. The economic crisis has underlined the growing importance of Asia in the world economy, and this could make Britain and the rest of Europe less important to Washington.

"The key relationship of the United States is with China over the next 10, 20 and perhaps 50 years and ... I think he (Obama) is going to avert America's gaze from Europe to Asia in general and to China in particular."


Strong trade ties

Even so, some British officials have portrayed Obama's decision to meet Brown before other European leaders as a sign of the importance he attaches to the relationship with Britain. The alliance was strong under Obama's and Brown's predecessors, George W. Bush and Tony Blair, who formed a close bond after the attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.

Blair backed Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003 and sent troops to join U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Brown, aware that many Britons opposed the Iraq war and felt Blair was subservient to Bush, was cooler in his dealings with Bush.

But analysts said the U.S.-British relationship is set to remain close - not only because of language and cultural affinities, but also due to strong trade and investment ties.

Mike Gapes, chairman of the British Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, said the alliance would continue to be "A special relationship, not THE special relationship."

Dana Allin, senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, said a special U.S.-British relationship existed "in a certain sense ... but not in terms that define it now in every sense as more important than relations with the French or the Germans."