Speaking in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where a primary is scheduled for May 6, the Illinois senator sought quell attempts among his political rivals to link him to the pastor, describing Wright’s recent public appearances as “outrageous”, “appalling”, a “distraction” and a “rant”.

Obama’s remarks came after Wright reiterated some of his most contentious ideas on AIDS and race relations, and again praised Louis Farrakhan, a black Muslim leader whom many see as anti-Semitic.

“The problems that we face as a country are too great to continue to be divided,” Obama said during Tuesday’s news conference. “What we saw on Monday out of Reverend Wright was a resurfacing, and I believe an exploitation, of those old divisions.”

“It is antithetical to our campaign, it is antithetical to what I am about, it is not what I think America stands for, and I want to be very clear that moving forward Reverend Wright does not speak for me, he does not speak for our campaign…”

His association with Wright, a former pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago who married Obama and his wife Michelle and baptised the couple’s two daughters, became a focus of the presidential election, when video clips of some of Wright’s fiery sermons surfaced on television and the internet.

In one, Wright was seen crying, “God Damn America”, and in others he said the US shares the blame for the September 11 attacks.