Washington: US President Barack Obama would travel to a Native American reservation in North Dakota next week on his first presidential trip to an Indian country.
The announcement was made by the US President himself in an op-ed to the Indian Country Today.
"Six years ago, I made my first trip to Indian Country. I visited the Crow Nation in Montana, an experience I will never forget. Next week, I will return to Indian Country, when Michelle and I visit the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in Cannonball, North Dakota," Obama wrote.
"We are eager to visit this reservation, which holds a special place in American history as the home of Chief Sitting Bull.
And while we are there, I will announce the next steps my Administration will take to support jobs, education, and self-determination in Indian Country," said the US President.
Obama said he will announce new initiatives to expand opportunity in Indian country by growing tribal economies and improving Indian education.
"As I have said before, the history of the United States and tribal nations is filled with broken promises.
But I believe that during my Administration, we have turned a corner together.
We are writing a new chapter in our history one in which agreements are upheld, tribal sovereignty is respected, and every American Indian and Alaskan Native who works hard has the chance to get ahead," he said.
Meanwhile, the US Attorney General, Eric Holder, travelling in Bismarck, North Dakota, said there is no denying that the recent progress has come in the shadow of decades of conflict and injustice when great wrongs were committed against Indian peoples, all too often in the name of the United States government.
"When the fundamental rights of American Indian and Alaska Native communities to shape their own destinies were far from assured.
When hostility, mistrust, and outright discrimination characterized the relationships between federal officials and tribal leaders," he said.
"And when misguided actions and broken promise after broken promise denied or abrogated the lands, languages, religions, and unique cultures that constitute the heritage and the birthright of every American Indian," Holder said.
Bill Clinton was the last US president to visit a Indian Country in 1999. He went to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
