June 12, 2007	Tuesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 26, 1428

SOFIA, June 11: United States President George W. Bush on Monday called on Russia to cooperate over missile defence and offered Serbia potential rewards from the West if it agreed to make Kosovo independent.

President Bush addressed two of the most crucial security problems facing Europe in Bulgaria, the last leg of a European tour that has been dominated by mounting tensions with Russia over a planned US missile defence shield and Kosovo.

Russia is a key ally of Serbia and has threatened to veto any plan which gives independence to Kosovo -- a cause strongly pushed by President Bush during the Balkan leg of his eight-day European tour.

Serbia has angrily rejected the calls for Kosovo’s independence in recent days but the US leader has been hailed in the ethnic-Albanian-dominated province.

“President Bush did not only confirm the strong support of the United States for the independence of Kosovo, but in some ways he declared the independence of Kosovo,” said Agim Ceku, the province’s Prime Minister.

But President Bush reaffirmed that he wanted to act on the plan for ‘internationally-supervised independence’ proposed by United Nations envoy Martti Ahtisaari.

He said there could also be benefits for Serbia.

“As we seek independence for Kosovo we have also got to make it clear to Serbia that there is a way forward, maybe in Nato, maybe in the EU, and definitely in better relations with the United States,” the US president said.

Despite Serbia’s anger, he was insistent that Washington wanted Kosovo to break free from Serbian control.

“The time is now to move the Ahtisaari plan. America believes that Kosovo ought to be independent,” he said.

Kosovo was a major cause of tension at the Group of Eight summit.

Putin rejected a French proposal to delay any independence moves for six months to allow new negotiations between Kosovo and Serbia.

“If Albanian separatists unilaterally proclaim independence, the Serbian government will immediately enact a law which will annul this unilateral decision and declare it null and void,” a Serbian cabinet source told the Tanjug news agency.

President Bush proposed setting up a joint panel of experts after Russian President Vladimir Putin last week offered to establish a joint anti-missile base.

“There is a process where we can cooperate, share information in a very transparent way, which I think would be beneficial and I would hope that the Russians would see the meetings as beneficial,” Mr Bush told a press conference after talks with Bulgarian leaders.

The US insists that the shield that it wants based in Poland and the Czech Republic is aimed at knocking out the threat from ‘rogue nations’ such as Iran and North Korea. Russia says it believes it is the only target and President Putin has threatened to aim his missiles at Europe if the shield is deployed.

President Bush said he made it clear to Mr Putin during talks last week at the Group of Eight summit that the US did “not view Russia as an enemy.”

“Russia is a country with whom we should have and can have good relations to solve common problems. One such problem is Iran. Another problem is proliferation,” he said.

He sought to ease concerns in Bulgaria that it would not get protection from any US shield.

He said the proposed shield was intended to stop long-range missiles that would fly over Bulgaria.

“There are missile systems and defence systems available that would deal with intermediate-range missiles, so just because Bulgaria is not a part of the longer-range missile shield does not mean that there won’t be equipment and help available for intermediate range,” said the US president.—AFP