US President George W Bush yesterday threw down the gauntlet to Russia, when he said ‘the time is now’ to grant independence to Kosovo.
Russia has threatened to veto any attempt to declare Kosovan independence at the UN Security Council.
But during his visit to Albania, Bush said: ‘I happen to believe it’s important to push the process along.’
Speaking at a joint news conference with Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha, Bush added: ‘The question is whether or not there’s going to be endless dialogue on a subject that we have made up our mind about.
‘We believe Kosovo ought to be independent.’
On the first visit of a sitting US president to the Balkan state, Bush was greeted by Albanians wearing red, white, and blue hats and waving American flags.
His visit to Tirana followed last week’s G8 summit in Germany.
Bush told reporters that most G8 leaders supported Kosovo independence, but ‘discussions were all aimed at determining if there is a way to make this acceptable to Russia.’
He admitted that ‘they’re not there yet’ adding that ‘I’m worried about expectations not being met in Kosovo and therefore we’ll push the process.’
Bush said US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would pursue the issue through diplomacy with Moscow along with the US’s EU allies.
After leaving Tirana yesterday, Bush travelled on to Sofia to meet the leaders of another East European ally, Bulgaria.
On Saturday, Bush had an audience at the Vatican with Pope Benedict XVI, who urged the US president to seek ‘regional and negotiated’ solutions to Iraq and other Middle East conflicts.
Bush said afterwards that he had been ‘in awe’ and it had been ‘a moving experience for me’.
As well as following events in the Middle East, Bush added that Pope Benedict was watching the US immigration debate intently
• ‘I express regret and apologise to the Tamil community on behalf of the government,’ Sri Lanka’s prime minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake said yesterday.
He was apologising for evicting thousands of the ethnic minority Tamils from the capital, Colombo.
‘It was a big mistake,’ Wickremanayake added, pledging that the government would ensure that Thursday’s expulsion of the Tamils at gunpoint, in the early hours of the morning from low-budget Colombo hostels, would not happen again.
He rejected claims by Sri Lanka’s police chief that the Tamils had left Colombo on their own accord.
