D Day 65th Anniversary

U.S. President Barack Obama on Saturday marked the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings on France's Normandy beaches, an important World War Two breakthrough in the battle against Nazi Germany. Residents in Normandy towns decked their streets in U.S. and French flags in preparation for Obama's visit. Posters welcoming Obama read: "Yes, we ca(e)n," a cross between Obama's election campaign slogan and the city, Caen which British and Canadian troops captured in 1944 after two months of bitter fighting.

Before taking part in the anniversary ceremony, Obama will hold talks in nearby Caen with French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Among the issues on the agenda will be Iran's nuclear programme which Sarkozy discussed with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki when they met in Paris this week. Obama has been seeking to repair ties with France and other European states who were alienated by his predecessor George W. Bush's go-it-alone diplomacy, the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and his policies on climate change.

French officials said Mottaki brought a message from Tehran that the Iranians were putting the finishing touches to a counter-proposal to a package of incentives offered by France, Britain, Germany, the United States, Russia and China that seeks to encourage Iran to halt uranium enrichment. Obama's presence at the D-Day ceremony has almost overshadowed the event, to the point that Sarkozy's failure to invite Britain's Queen Elizabeth prompted accusations that he was trying to make space for himself next to Obama.