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
Presidency of Barack Obama emphasized closer relations with India, and was the first president to visit the country twice. An advocate for nuclear non-proliferation, Obama successfully negotiated arms-reduction deals with Iran and Russia. In 2015, Obama described the Obama Doctrine, saying "we will engage, but we preserve all our capabilities." Obama also described himself as an internationalist who rejected isolationism and was influenced by realism and liberal interventionism. During the 2008 presidential election, Obama strongly criticized the Iraq War, and Obama withdrew the vast majority of U.S. soldiers in Iraq by late 2011. On taking office, Obama announced that U.S. combat forces would leave