LONDON — President Obama was welcomed to Britain by Queen Elizabeth II on Tuesday with full pomp and ceremony at Buckingham Palace, as the Scots Guards’ band played the “The Star-Spangled Banner” and the 41 booms of a royal salute resounded across the palace gardens.
The ceremony inaugurated a two-day state visit by the American president, rich in pageantry but shadowed by concerns over the stalemate in Libya, the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and deepening tensions between the Israelis and Palestinians.
The queen and Mr. Obama emerged on to the west terrace of the palace just after 12:30, under a bright sky with a brisk wind that ruffled the bearskin hats on the heads of the honor guard. The first lady, Michelle Obama, walked with Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
After the playing of the American national anthem, Mr. Obama and Prince Philip reviewed the Scots Guard, while the queen and Mrs. Obama watched from the terrace, putting their heads together to chat.
In a rare gesture, the queen has invited the Obamas to stay at Buckingham Palace while in London and a palace official told reporters that she gave them a tour of their six-room suite, used by Prince William and Kate Middleton, now known as the Duchess of Cambridge, on the night of the wedding.
“It may not be the same bed; it is the same suite,” said the aide, who, by custom, asked not to be identified by name.
Mr. and Mrs. Obama met briefly with the newlywed couple before stepping outside for the arrival ceremony, which was attended by Prince Charles and his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall.
With its ruffles and flourishes, Mr. Obama’s state visit to Britain is meant to underline its “special relationship” with the United States, even if that phrase has sometimes suggested more warmth and sympathy than actually exists between two strong-minded allies.
Mr. Obama and the British prime minister, David Cameron, prefer calling it an “essential relationship,” a phrase they road-tested in a joint op-ed piece published Tuesday in The Times of London. Whether in Libya, Afghanistan, Sudan or fighting pirates off the Horn of Africa, the two leaders wrote, the United States and Britain are united by shared national interests.
“We can honestly say that despite being two leaders from two different political traditions, we see eye to eye,” Mr. Obama and Mr. Cameron wrote. “We look at the world in a similar way, share the same concerns, and see the same strategic possibilities.”
Indeed, as some British commentators have pointed out, aside from their youth, there is little natural affinity between Mr. Obama, the community organizer from Chicago, and Mr. Cameron, the conservative leader from a privileged background of private clubs.
Yet American officials insist that Mr. Obama gets along well with Mr. Cameron, talking regularly to him about the Libyan campaign, the Middle East peace process and other issues.
“They have a very, very effective relationship,” said Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, a senior director at the National Security Council. “The president and David Cameron have an ongoing conversation.”
The two men will have a lot to talk about, not least the NATO bombing campaign in Libya, which escalated sharply on Tuesday morning, with heavy bombing raids in Tripoli, concentrated around the command compound of the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.
Mr. Obama is also expected to explain his latest proposal for breaking the impasse in Middle East peace talks — a formal endorsement of Israel’s pre-1967 borders, adjusted to account for Jewish settlements in the West Bank, as the starting point for talks over a Palestinian state.
Europeans, who have been more receptive than the United States to a Palestinian campaign to win international recognition for a new state, generally welcomed Mr. Obama’s initiative.
The diplomatic business of the visit will mostly be conducted Wednesday, when Mr. Obama has a formal meeting with Mr. Cameron. But the two will meet briefly on Tuesday, and Mr. Obama is also expected to sit down with the leader of the Labour opposition, Ed Miliband.
On Tuesday evening, the queen is to host a state dinner for Mr. Obama. Sticklers for protocol were watching to see what gifts the Obamas presented to her. Some eyebrows were raised in 2009 when Mr. Obama presented her with an iPod. Likewise, Mrs. Obama ruffled a few feathers by putting her hand on the queen’s back — an inappropriate gesture to a monarch — though the two women were said to get along famously.
This time, the first couple and the royal couple exchanged gifts that were oddly similar in their high-mindedness.
Mr. and Mrs. Obama gave the queen a collection of rare memorabilia and photographs chronicling the 1939 visit to the United States by her parents, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, according to the White House. The collection, bound in handmade leather, “contains both historic and personal value,” the White House said in a statement.
The Obamas received a collection of letters between Queen Victoria and several American presidents, beginning with one from John Quincy Adams to Princess Victoria in 1834. The collection, drawn from the Royal Archives, is bound in red leather with gold lettering, though the staff of Buckingham Palace added, “the letters are facsimiles.”
Source
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/25/world/europe/25prexy.html?hp
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