President Obama hopes summit meetings will quiet foreign inquiries
President Barack Obama’s administration plans to use a pair of summit meetings with foreign leaders this weekend to develop some consensus around the international response to both the European debt crisis and the war in Afghanistan. The back-to-back summits bring together the leaders of eight of the world’s richest economies at the Group of Eight summit at the presidential country retreat at Camp David, followed by a larger meeting of 61 NATO members and other allies in Chicago, where Obama was senator.
On Thursday, White House officials said at Camp David, the president will share his vision of a comprehensive approach to containing the fallout from Greece’s continuous financial meltdown, which gained urgency amid restored fears this week that the country would pull out of the euro currency zone. The crisis has put pressure on the White House to consider a more aggressive U.S. intervention. According to administration officials, the Camp David summit will be the largest gathering of leaders ever at the presidential retreat. The Group of Eight leaders are also expected to discuss Syria, North Korea, Iran, and Afghanistan. NATO’s two day summit meetings, which will begin on Sunday, will specifically speak to the timeline for NATO’s hand-over security responsibility to Afghan forces. The twin summits will test President Obama’s leadership at a time of great uncertainty in several of his administration’s core foreign policy challenges. After the summits, the president will deliver an address at a high school commencement ceremony in Joplin, Missouri, a community ruined by tornado devastation in the spring of 2011.
