[Al Jazeera] Barack B.O. Obama, the US president, has said he is making progress towards ending the mistrust between Mohammedan countries and the United States, but that the effort is incomplete. Obama flew from India to Indonesia, his former boyhood home, on Tuesday for the second leg of his 10-day Asia trip.
At a joint news conference with Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the Indonesian president, Obama said his efforts to improve the relationship between Mohammedans and the West had been "earnest" and "sustained".
However,
The infamous However ...
he said the progress was "incomplete" and there was more work to do.
Obama also said he did not think "we're going to completely eliminate some of the misunderstandings and mistrust".
The president said he wanted to make sure the US is "building bridges and expanding our interactions with Mohammedan countries".
He needed TOTUS to say all that boilerplate?
During their meeting in Jakarata, the Indonesian capital, Obama and Yudhoyono signed a "comprehensive partnership" that they had agreed to a year ago, including co-operation on economic and security issues.
Though religious extremism often dominates the tensions between the Mohammedan world and the West, Obama said the relationship must expand beyond security issues.
At the news conference, Obama also criticised Israel's plans to build about 1,300 new apartments in disputed East Jerusalem.
"This kind of activity is never helpful when it comes to peace negotiations," Obama said. 
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