President Bush Visits Albania

Thousands Hail Bush in Visit to Albania

TIRANA, Albania, June 10 ?- His poll numbers may be in the basement, but when he zipped through this small, relentlessly pro-American nation on Sunday, President Bush was treated like a rock star.

Albanians waited behind a police tape on Sunday in the town of Fusche Kruje to greet President Bush.
Military cannons boomed a 21-gun salute in his honor. Thousands of people jammed Skanderbeg Square in downtown Tirana, wearing Uncle Sam top hats in the sweltering heat, hoping to glimpse the presidential motorcade. The superlatives flowed so freely that Mr. Bush looked a tad sheepish when Prime Minister Sali Berisha proclaimed him "the greatest and most distinguished guest we have ever had in all times."

The eight-hour stop ?- Mr. Bush left Rome in the morning and was headed to Sofia, Bulgaria, on Sunday night ?- made him the first sitting American president to visit this former Communist state. He told the Albanians what they wanted to hear ?- that he supported their effort to join NATO and wanted independence soon for Kosovo, a largely ethnic Albanian breakaway province of Serbia ?- without making any fresh commitments.

"At some point in time, sooner rather than later, you've got to say, ?'Enough is enough ?- Kosovo is independent,' " Mr. Bush said. He said any plan to extend talks on Kosovo, like the one proposed recently by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, must end with "certain independence."

The future of Kosovo is of paramount interest here; some Kosovo residents traveled to Tirana to join the crowd. The United Nations Security Council is considering a plan for independence, but Russia objects. On Saturday in Rome, the president agreed that there should be a deadline to end the United Nations talks, saying: "In terms of a deadline, there needs to be one. It needs to happen."

But on Sunday, Mr. Bush tried to backtrack when asked when that deadline might be. "First of all, I don't think I called for a deadline," Mr. Bush said, during a press appearance with Mr. Berisha in the courtyard of a government ministry building. He was reminded that he had.

"I did?" he asked, sounding surprised. "What exactly did I say? I said deadline? O.K., yes, then I meant what I said." The reporters laughed.

The visit to Albania, the fifth stop on Mr. Bush's eight-day, six-country swing through Europe, was a welcome respite for the president after Rome, where protests against him turned violent. This largely Muslim country, population 3.6 million, is just the kind of nation Mr. Bush likes best: a nascent democracy whose history includes a dramatic break with totalitarian rule.

Other Central and Eastern European nations are generally friendly to Mr. Bush, even if they have reservations about his visa policies. And not everyone is pleased with his plans for a missile defense network in the Czech Republic and Poland. But Albania is more than friendly. It is gushing.

The country, one of the poorest in the region, has just issued three postage stamps bearing Mr. Bush's likeness, and a street in front of the Parliament building has been renamed for him. At the mosque in the center of town, Uncle Sam hats were stacked in a window seat in the prayer room.

Even the war in Iraq is popular here.

"U.S.A. have the right and responsibility for all the world to protect the freedom," said Ilir Lamçe, 37, a financial analyst who was among those waiting for Mr. Bush, using English to express the views of many. "This is the right war."

Sami Berisha, who drove seven hours from Kosovo to see Mr. Bush, said he could not understand anyone who would take part in a protest against the president. "I think these are crazy people," said Mr. Berisha, who is not related to the prime minister, "because democracy begins in America."

Albanians have a long history of fondness toward America, dating to President Woodrow Wilson, who saved the country from being split up among its neighbors after World War I. Former President Clinton, who rescued ethnic Albanians from the Kosovo war, is warmly remembered here, as is Mr. Bush's father.

On Sunday, all that love poured in Mr. Bush's direction, and when the president jumped out of his limousine during a stop near the prime minister's villa in the town of Fusche Kruje, the crowd, chanting "BOOSH-Y! BOOSH-Y!" went wild, turning a presidential visit into a virtual mosh pit.

Hands were reaching for the president from all directions, grabbing his sleeves, rubbing his graying hair. Women kissed him on both cheeks. Men jostled to get close to him, as Secret Service agents encircled him. As he stood on the running board of his limousine, waving before ducking back in the car, a second limousine pulled up to protect him from the rear.

Even so, Mr. Bush left some of his adoring public disappointed. They wished that their hero, the American president, would stay longer ?- or at least deliver a speech in public.

"This is Albania," said Alba Mujarrem, 50, in English, gesturing toward the throng at Skanderbeg Square. "Albania is a quiet place. Please, why not to take a speech in front of us here? Why not?"