European foreign policy of the Barack Obama administration signal to the Muslim world and firmly anchor the country in Europe. The trip marked Obama's first visit to a Muslim majority country. Obama has asserted that a close relationship with a stable, democratic, Western-oriented Republic of Turkey is an important U.S. national interest. His administration declared that the U.S. will support the promotion of democracy, human rights, and freedom of expression in Turkey and support its efforts to join the European Union, which the president confirmed on his April visit. While Obama has gone on the record in the past as referring to the massacre of Armenians under the
Aharon Barak Aharon Barak Aharon Barak (, born Erik Brick, 16 September 1936) is a Professor of Law at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya and a lecturer in law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Yale Law School, Central European University, Georgetown University Law Center, and the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. Barak was President of the Supreme Court of Israel from 1995 to 2006. Prior to that, he served as a Justice of the Supreme Court of Israel (1978–95), as the Attorney General of Israel (1975–78), and as the Dean of the Law Faculty of the Hebrew University of