'Kosovo should be independent'

US President George W. Bush said yesterday the UN should grant independence quickly to the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo, and if Russia continued to block it then the West would act.

Mr Bush's insistence on a deadline for a UN Security Council resolution to give independence to Kosovo was the latest sign of heightened tensions between Moscow and Washington. Russia has threatened to veto the Kosovo proposal.

"At some point in time, sooner rather than later, you've got to say enough is enough, Kosovo is independent," he told a news conference in the first visit by a US president to Albania.

Mr Bush added he was "worried about expectations not being met" in Kosovo, where 90 per cent of the population are ethnic Albanians demanding independence from Serbia and where Nato leads a peacekeeping force of 17,000 troops.

But a Kremlin official said Mr Bush's comments in Albania had not altered Russian opposition.

Making the penultimate stop of an eight-day European tour, Mr Bush was warmly welcomed in Albania, once the world's only officially atheist state under the late Stalinist dictator Enver Hoxha. Mr Bush later arrived at his final stop in Bulgaria.

After the collapse of communism in 1990, Albania embraced Western values. Mr Bush paid tribute to a society which had known tyranny and overcome it. Smiling broadly on a quick trip outside the capital, Mr Bush dived into a throng of waiting Albanian fans to enjoy an ecstatic rock-star reception very different from the hostile protests he encountered earlier in Italy and Germany.

Waving and blowing kisses, clearly at ease, he swept past his security detail and strode up to the crowd to shake hands and let them kiss his cheeks and rub his head.

He seemed reluctant to leave, jumping up on the running board of his big black official car to wave a vigorous goodbye. Unpopular in much of western Europe, Mr Bush was hailed by Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha as "the greatest and most distinguished guest we have ever had".

He thanked Albania for support in Iraq and Afghanistan, and gave strong backing to the country's bid to join Nato.

But it was his reassurances over Kosovo that made the biggest impact on Albanians, coming just days after Russia dealt a public slap to Western diplomacy at the G8 summit in Germany by blocking Kosovo's path to independence at the UN.

Mr Bush said Washington would continue to seek a deal on a UN resolution but "if it is apparent that (it) is not going to happen in a relatively quick period of time, in my judgment, we need to put forward the resolution. Hence, deadline."

Kosovo has been run by the UN and Nato since 1999 when the West bombed Serbia for 11 weeks to halt its brutal crackdown on an ethnic Albanian insurgency, in which Serb forces killed some 10,000 civilians and drove out nearly a million.

Serbia strongly opposes the loss of Kosovo, its spiritual heartland dating back 1,000 years. Russian President Vladimir Putin told visiting Serb premier Vojislav Kostunica "with pleasure" at the weekend that he had thwarted Western plans.

But in Kosovo, ethnic Albanian Prime Minister Agim Ceku hailed Mr Bush's "clear and strong message".