FACTBOX-Obama remarks on foreign policy
WASHINGTON, April 29 (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday told a news conference marking his 100th day in office he would "do whatever is required to keep the American people safe."
Here are highlights of his remarks that dealt with foreign policy:
NEW DIRECTION
* "I also campaigned on the promise that I would change the direction of our nation's foreign policy. And we've begun to do that."
* "We've begun to end the war in Iraq, and we forged with our NATO allies a new strategy to target al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan."
* "We have rejected the false choice between our security and our ideals by closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay and banning torture without exception."
TORTURE
* "Waterboarding violates our ideals and our values. I do believe that it is torture."
* "I strongly believe that the steps that we've taken to prevent these kinds of enhanced interrogation techniques will make us stronger over the long term and make us safer over the long term."
* "It takes away a critical recruitment tool that al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations have used to try to demonize the United States and justify the killing of civilians."
* "It puts us in a much stronger position to work with our allies in the kind of international, coordinated intelligence activity that can shut down these networks."
* "I think the American people over time will recognize that it is better for us to stick to who we are, even when we're taking on an unscrupulous enemy."
KEEPING AMERICANS SAFE
* "I will do whatever is required to keep the American people safe."
* "I am absolutely convinced that the best way I can do that is to make sure that we are not taking short cuts that undermine who we are."
PAKISTAN
* "I'm confident that we can make sure that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is secure."
* "I'm more concerned that the civilian government there right now is very fragile and don't seem to have the capacity to deliver basic services."
* "We need to help Pakistan help Pakistanis. And I think that there's a recognition increasingly on the part of both the civilian government there and the army that that is their biggest weakness."
* "You're starting to see some recognition just in the last few days that the obsession with India as the mortal threat to Pakistan has been misguided, and that their biggest threat right now comes internally."
* "We have huge strategic interests, huge national security interests in making sure that Pakistan is stable and that you don't end up having a nuclear-armed militant state."
IRAQ
* "Although you've seen some spectacular bombings in Iraq that are a legitimate cause of concern, civilian deaths, incidents of bombings, et cetera, remain very low relative to what was going on last year."
* "The political system is holding and functioning in Iraq."
* "Part of the reason why I called for a gradual withdrawal as opposed to a precipitous one was precisely because more work needs to be done on the political side to further isolate whatever remnants of al Qaeda in Iraq still exists."
* "We've provided sufficient time for them to get that work done, but we've got to keep the pressure up, not just on the military side, but on the diplomatic and development sides, as well." (Compiled by Jasmin Melvin)
