Mongolian president to meet with Obama

The country known for Genghis Khan is a U.S. friend that merits increased U.S. attention, Mongolia's president said before meeting with President Barack Obama. "Sometimes you have to pay attention to your friends," Tsakhia Elbegdorj told The Washington Post. The United States, like long-ago superpower Mongolia, "has a responsibility to help those who are trying to follow in its steps," said Elbegdorj, whose market-economy nation is a parliamentary republic that holds regular elections and lets power pass peacefully between rival parties. Obama is to meet Elbegdorj, who has a master's degree from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, in the Oval Office to discuss expanding "diplomatic, economic and defense cooperation," the White House said Wednesday evening. Kurt Campbell, U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, said the administration was "committed to developing a broader, deeper and more strategic relationship with Mongolia, including expanded commercial, political and cultural ties." Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are to visit the giant, landlocked, minerals-rich country bordered by Russia to the north and the China to the south, east and west. Mongolia -- which broke free from China in 1921 but then was under heavy Soviet influence until the early 1990s -- is the 19th-largest independent and most sparsely populated country in the world, with about 2.8 million people occupying an area the size of western and central Europe combined. Its 13th and 14th century empire, founded by Genghis Khan, stretched from eastern Europe to the Sea of Japan, going as far north as Siberia and extending southward into Southeast Asia, India, and the Middle East. The Mongol Empire -- commonly referred to as the largest contiguous empire in the history of the world -- covered 22 percent of the Earth's total land area and held sway over 100 million people. Now, the Tibetan Buddhist country is a U.S. ally -- sending troops to support U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq -- has a vibrant free press, allows street protests and does not routinely harass critics, the Post said. "Maybe if we caused problems -- if we hid [Osama] bin Laden or atom bombs -- America would pay more attention," Elbegdorj joked. U.S. Ambassador to Mongolia Jonathan Addleton said Mongolia -- which gets about $10 million a year in U.S. assistance -- would be "in a better place when it moves from an aid relationship to commercial relationships, as it is doing now." Mongolia plans to buy three airplanes from Boeing Co., Elbegdorj told the Post, with the deal to be announced soon. The World Bank recently described Mongolia's prospects for economic growth -- due in part to its rich mineral resources, including copper, coal, molybdenum, tin, tungsten and gold -- as "excellent." "The values connection is very important," Elbegdorj said. "We have to strengthen that connection. If America invests in that, America will have many friends [in Mongolia] who live on their own, not with bombs or American troops."