President Barrack obama(Photo:US Gov)

Mr. Obama’s remarks were significant because the settlement moratorium is looming as the early marker for the direction of the nascent peace talks, which began last week. Israeli officials have given no indication that they plan to extend the moratorium once it expires at the end of September, while Mr. Abbas has said that he will walk away from the talks if settlement construction resumes. During this, his eighth news conference at the White House, Mr. Obama also implicitly acknowledged that a bad message was sent by the presence on the C.I.A. payroll of Afghan officials who the West accuses of corruption at the same time that the United States is lecturing the Afghan government to stop corruption.

Some have made compromises

Mr. Obama said: “Are there going to be occasions where we look and see that some of our folks on the ground have made compromises with people who are known to have engaged in corruption? You know we’re reviewing all that constantly, and there may be occasions where that happens.” The New York Times reported last month that an official at the center of a politically sensitive corruption investigation — an aide to President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan — is being paid by the Central Intelligence Agency. Mr. Obama said that the United States has “got to make sure we’re not sending a mixed message here,” adding that he has asked his national security team to be consistent. “Our actions have to match up across the board,” Mr. Obama said.

Seventy five minutes with Press

During the 75-minute press conference, Mr. Obama also gave an impassioned call for Americans to mend their relations with the Islamic world, and with American Muslims in particular. The recent furor over the construction of an Islamic center in New York, blocks away from the site of the Sept. 11 attacks , and the recent threat by a Florida pastor to burn 200 Korans, Mr. Obama said, sends the wrong message, both at home and abroad. “I’ve got Muslims who are fighting in Afghanistan, in the uniform of the United States armed services,” Mr. Obama said. “They’re out there putting their lives on the line for us. And we’ve got to make sure that we are crystal clear for our sakes and their sakes: They are Americans. And we honor their service. And part of honoring their service is making sure that they understand that we don’t differentiate between ‘them’ and ‘us.’ It’s just ‘us.’ ”

Opposing Business Tax Policy

The president’s opening remarks at the news conference were focused on fiscal and economic issues. Mr. Obama announced that he was promoting the White House economist, Austan D. Goolsbee, to succeed Christina Romer as chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers. He also pressed for passage of his proposals to make permanent the expiring Bush-era income tax cuts for most taxpayers — but not for “millionaires and billionaires” — and to provide new investment tax breaks for businesses. He criticized Republicans in Congress for “holding middle-class tax relief hostage” and for opposing business tax policies they once favored, in pursuit of partisan political advantage, writes New York Times.