Obama presses Europe on Afghanistan in Berlin

US presidential candidate Barack Obama urged Europe yesterday to stand by the US in bringing stability to Afghanistan and confronting other threats from climate change to nuclear proliferation.

Speaking at the Victory Column in Berlin's Tiergarten park to an audience police estimated at over 200,000, the Democratic senator said America had no better partner than Europe but cautioned the allies against turning inward.

"No one welcomes war. I recognise the enormous difficulties in Afghanistan," Mr Obama said in the only formal public speech he will give on a week-long tour of Europe and the Middle East meant to burnish his foreign policy credentials.

"But my country and yours have a stake in seeing that Nato's first mission beyond Europe's borders is a success. For the people of Afghanistan, and for our shared security, the work must be done. America cannot do this alone."

Broad in scope, the speech was aimed not only at European audiences but also US voters who face a choice in the November 4 election between the Democrat Mr Obama and Republican John McCain.

Mr McCain, a Vietnam veteran and former prisoner of war, is an Arizona senator who has long been an influential voice on foreign policy and military matters.

He is making national security a central focus of his campaign and contends that Mr Obama, a 46-year-old first-term senator from Illinois, lacks the foreign affairs seasoning to serve as commander-in-chief.

Mr Obama has aimed to dispel that notion with a seven-nation tour this week that has taken him to Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, Jordan and Israel.

He is highly popular in Germany and his appearance has been likened to the 1963 visit of President John F. Kennedy, whose "Ich bin ein Berliner" address shortly after the building of the Berlin Wall became an iconic moment of the Cold War.

Mr Obama did not break into German like Mr Kennedy, but spoke at length of the historic ties between the US and Germany, touching on the Berlin airlift 60 years ago and the fall of the Wall in 1989.

"The fall of the Berlin Wall brought new hope. But that very closeness has given rise to new dangers," he said in the 28-minute speech. "No one nation, no matter how large or powerful, can defeat such challenges alone."