Obama to Make Rare Malaysia Stop on Asia Tour

Barack Obama will pay the first visit by a U.S. president to Malaysia in a half-century on a four-nation Asia tour next month, the White House said Friday.

Obama will attend summits in Indonesia and Brunei and also visit longtime U.S. ally the Philippines during the October 6-12 trip.

The last U.S. president to visit Malaysia was Lyndon Johnson in 1966. U.S. relations with the Muslim-majority nation soured during the 1981-2003 tenure of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, a strident critic of the West.

The White House said that Obama will visit Malaysia to take part in the Global Entrepreneurship Summit, an initiative on job growth that the U.S. leader designed as a way to reach out to the Islamic world.

Obama will also meet Prime Minister Najib Razak "to highlight our growing bilateral ties with Malaysia," a White House statement said.

Obama, who spent part of his youth in Indonesia, has put a priority on building relations with Southeast Asia, seeing the fast-growing and largely U.S.-friendly region as neglected in the past.

The trip is "part of his ongoing commitment to increase U.S. political, economic and security engagement with the Asia Pacific," the statement said.

Obama will take part in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Bali, Indonesia and then head to the sultanate of Brunei for the East Asia Summit.

Russia traditionally participates in the regional meetings, potentially giving Obama his latest opportunity to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russia has spearheaded a proposal for Syrian President Bashar Assad to put his chemical weapons under international control, at least temporarily halting a U.S. push for a military strike in retaliation for the regime's alleged use of the weapons.