PM wants change in US Middle East policy
Malaysiakini
Nov 9, 2006

Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi today called on US President George W Bush to rethink his Middle East polices following the Democrats' victory in mid-term elections.

"The president should take this important message coming from electorates and the Americans, the voters," said Abdullah, who is also chair of the 57-nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference.

"It is important that he makes some fundamental adjustments in his policy, especially with regards to Iraq and the Middle East," he told reporters.

The war in Iraq and a scandal-plagued Republican Congress are seen as the crunch issues that saw Democrats make sweeping gains across the US to seize control of the House of Representatives in Tuesday's vote.

Abdullah, who met Bush in September in New York to discuss a range of issues including peacekeeping in Lebanon, and Washington's outreach to the Muslim world, said he had anticipated the election result.

"I thought it would happen that way and I thought that President Bush and (his party) would suffer a loss," said the prime minister.

The government of this mainly-Muslim Southeast Asian nation, hailed by Washington for its support in the "war on terror", has condemned the war against Iraq.

However both nations share close trading ties and are in talks to sign a free trade agreement by mid-2007.