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Obama spoke at the Taj Mahal hotel, a target of the 60-hour siege that killed 166 people across the city.
The president spoke after meeting privately with relatives of those killed in the November 2008 attack. He and first lady Michelle Obama visited an outdoor memorial, an open-air fountain with floating flowers, just off the lobby at Taj, where one of the shooting rampages took place.
He also signed a memorial book, writing: “The United States stands in solidarity with all of Mumbai and all of India in working to eradicate the scourge of terrorism.”
But illustrating the difficulties of the U.S.-India relationship even as Obama began a trip aimed at strengthening it, Indian commentators quickly seized on the president’s failure in his spoken remarks to mention Pakistan.
Pakistan was the home of the 10 assailants, the place where they trained and the base they used to launch the attack.
Obama said the U.S. and India are working together more closely than ever before to keep their people safe, describing the countries as “two partners that will never waver in our defense of our people.”
Obama told museum officials as he left the library that he’d visit again and would bring daughters Malia and Sasha. The girls did not accompany their parents on the trip because of their school schedules.
The trip is also taking him to Indonesia, where he lived for four years as a youth, to South Korea for a meeting of the Group of 20 developed and developing nations and then to Japan for an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.