WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama named an Indian-American as new Special Envoy to the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) in a bid to forge closer ties with the Muslim world. The appointment of Rashad Hussain, who currently serves as White House Deputy Associate Counsel, was announced by President Obama in a video message to the seventh annual US Islamic World Forum in Doha, Qatar. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will address the forum tomorrow. "The US and Muslims around the world have often slipped into a cycle of misunderstanding and mistrust that can lead to conflict rather than cooperation," Obama said, calling for a "new beginning" in relations. Obama's message, leading off the three-day forum, was portrayed as reflecting the administration efforts to reinforce his maiden speech to the Muslim world on June 4, 2009 in Cairo, where he called for "a new beginning" among people to break what he called then a "cycle of suspicion and discord." The administration's stated goal is to lift US standing with Muslims as the White House is trying to renew the Middle East peace process, wage war against Islamic insurgents in two countries, and battle to choke off support for al-Qaeda and other terrorists. In his June 2009 remarks, Obama reminded the audience that his father was from a Muslim family and he spent part of his childhood in Indonesia, the most populous Muslim nation. In the video message, Obama said his administration has "made a sustained effort to listen" to Muslims, and that he'll do that again next month when he visits Indonesia. To forge economic ties worldwide and promote innovation and job creation, Obama said he plans to host a summit on entrepreneurship in Washington in April with business leaders from Muslim communities around the world. The appointment of a special envoy "is an important part of the President's commitment to engaging Muslims around the world based on mutual respect and mutual interest," said Mike Hammer, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council. "None of this will be easy," the President said in the video message. "The new beginning we envision will take a long-term commitment." He pledged to write "the next chapter in the ties between us with faith in each other on the basic of mutual respect." The Organisation of the Islamic Conference has 57 nations and is the second-largest intergovernmental group after the United Nations. Hussain's job is to strengthen cooperation between the US and the Islamic Conference in such areas as education, entrepreneurship, science and technology, health and opposition to violence and extremism "in all its forms," Hammer said in an e-mailed statement. The White House stressed it already had worked with the conference to eradicate polio, a scourge in three Muslim-majority countries -- Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan -- and also in India. At the White House, Hussain's portfolio includes national security, new media and science and technology issues and developing partnerships with the Muslim world. Hussain has been a trial attorney at the US Justice Department and a law clerk Damon Keith on the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He's served as a legislative assistant on the House Judiciary Committee, where he reviewed legislation such as the USA Patriot Act. He holds a master's degree in public administration and in Arabic and Islamic Studies from Harvard University and a law degree from Yale Law School, where he served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal, according to the White House. "I'm looking forward to implementing the partnerships that the President laid out" in his Cairo speech, Hussain told reporters in Doha after the announcement. "The unprecedented framework that he set up that focuses not just the political conflict, but progress in the areas of education, health, science and technology. I look forward to deepening those partnerships." The forum in Doha was organised by the Washington-based Brookings Institution's Saban Centre for Middle East Policy and Qatar government. The goal is to bring leaders from across the Muslim world together for an intensive three-day dialogue with key US officials, societal leaders and policy experts. "With President Obama determined to turn the page in America's relations with Muslim communities around the globe, this year's forum will examine how to craft more robust partnerships that can help repair the deep divisions our societies," said Strobe Talbott, President of the Brookings Institution and former US deputy secretary of state in the Clinton administration. Richard Holbrooke, the US Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, are also participating in the forum, Brookings spokeswoman Gail Chalef said.