US:Perceptions of the war in Iraq have made it harder for the United States to talk about its relationship with Muslims, a senior US government official has said.
However, Farah Pandith, who is senior adviser to the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, said it was wrong to conflate America's foreign policy with the way it respects a given faith.
"For those that believe that American foreign policy is based on religion, they are incorrect. Our country formulates its foreign policy like any other country on Earth - geostrategic needs, national security policy and other things. It isn't as though we have a special foreign policy for Muslims or non-Muslims," she said.
"It [ the Iraq war] has made the job harder for America to talk about our relationship with Muslims, but the facts speak for themselves. We have done so much for Muslim communities around the world."
The US had exerted financial, diplomatic and military force to go to the aid of people across the Muslim world in recent years, she added, pointing to the aftermath of recent earthquakes in Pakistan and Iran and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
Ms Pandith, who previously worked at the National Security Council, is focused on Muslim communities in Europe and is responsible for policy oversight of integration, democracy and Islam in the State Department's bureau of European and Eurasian affairs.
She said there was a belief among many Muslims that Americans did not respect their God, and said there was a need for the US to engage in dialogue and "build bridges" with Muslims to show that this wasn't true.
Ms Pandith observed that many of the dilemmas faced by young Muslims in Europe, notably those related to identity, are also faced by their peers across the spectrum of faiths and backgrounds.
"But what happens when you are feeling marginalised or feeling as though you're not heard, or feeling as though your needs are not being met with regard to educational thirst for understanding Islam within the western context, for example? Or how to balance your identity so that it is culturally compatible? When you get those things going for you, it makes a very difficult conversation for these young people."
