SEVEN HISTORIC DAYS

But within those 100 days there cannot have been anything to equal the week that President Obama has just spent in London, Strasbourg, Prague, Ankara -- and, finally, Baghdad. And within that week his visit to Turkey must have been the most diplomatically difficult and dangerous -- yet the man pulled it off with only minor difficulties, principally that of his support for American Armenians who insist that the Turks were guilty of genocide against their forefathers in 1915. Barack Hussein Obama - as he was introduced by the Speaker of the Turkish parliament - declared that “The United States is not at war with Islam” and told his audience , “Many Americans have Muslims in their families, or have lived in a Muslim majority country - I know, because I am one of them.” In his first comment on the Middle East process since Benjamin Netanyahu became prime minister of Israel, the President repeated his commitment to a two-state solution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict and said he would “actively pursue” that goal. At some time soon, however, he will have to respond to the categorical rejection of this solution by both Mr Netanyahu and his newly appointed foreign minister. At the moment the two views are diametrically opposed.