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Barack Obama in Berlin

Berlin: U.S. Democratic presidential hopeful Barak Obama kicked off the European leg of his overseas trip in Berlin on Thursday, meeting German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Mr. Obama, shortly after arriving at Tegel Airpot, was ferried in a motorcade to a private meeting with Ms. Merkel at the chancellery, which sits across from the glass-domed Reichstags parliament building.

Berlin is the first step on a European leg that will also take Mr. Obama to France and Britain as part of an effort to burnish his foreign policy credentials as he campaigns against Republican John McCain.

He arrived in the German capital following visits to Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel and Jordan.

After meeting with Ms. Merkel for about an hour, Mr. Obama left in a motorcade to the Hotel Adlon where President Gorge W Bush stayed in 2002, also the same hotel where pop singer Michael Jackson drew criticism for holding his child out of a window from his room later that year.

The hotel was closed off for 10 minutes while police specialists checked a suspicious package that was found to contain only a book. It was unclear whether Mr. Obama was in the building at the time. — AP

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