Hillary Clinton lands in Indonesia with message for Muslims

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived Wednesday in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-majority country, on a mission to start mending US ties with the Islamic world.

She is to meet Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda and leaders of the Jakarta-based Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) later in the day on the second leg of her four-nation swing through Asia.

Clinton touched down under heavy cloud and was greeted by senior officials and a choir of female students from US President Barack Obama's old primary school in Jakarta.

Obama spent part of his early childhood here and has promised to improve relations with the Islamic world after the US-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan under George W. Bush.

"We have a responsibility to speak out and to work with the Muslim world on behalf of positive change and to enlist the help of Muslims around the world against the extremists," Clinton told students in Japan on Tuesday.

"And it is very difficult in many parts of the world today to do that," said the chief US diplomat, who acknowledged that the war in Iraq was a stumbling block to better US ties with the Muslim world.

In her first overseas trip in her new role, she said she wanted to follow in Obama's footsteps and "speak directly to Muslims".