CAMP BONDSTEEL, Yugoslavia (Islamweb & Agencies) - Fifty miles from heavy fighting, President Bush urged ethnic Albanians in Kosovo to stop what he called sneaking weapons across the border to Macedonia where Albanians are fighting for equal rights in the Slav-dominated Rebulic.
The president, in his first trip to the troubled region, also renewed his commitment on Tuesday to the NATO-led peacekeeping mission here in Kosovo. Even so, he told cheering U.S. troops he hoped to ``hasten the day'' they can return home. (Read photo caption below).
More than 5,000 U.S. troops participate in the effort to preserve peace in Kosovo, a province of Serbia in Yugoslavia.
Their mission was expanded in June to ferret out arms being smuggled across the 100-mile border shared with Macedonia, where 500 more U.S. troops are based.
A supporter of the Macedonia government, Bush said, ``We need you to keep patrolling the border and cutting off the arms flow'' to Albanian fighters.
Hours after Bush spoke to the troops, ethnic Albanian fighters attacked an army barracks and surrounded four villages in Macedonia. At the same time, mobs in Skopje, the capital, attacked the U.S., British and German embassies. The protesters accused NATO of siding with the Albanians.
On the question of U.S. involvement in the Balkans, Bush seemed to be seeking a balance between his allegiance to NATO and long-held skepticism about peacekeeping missions.
``NATO's commitment to the peace of this region is enduring, but the stationing of our force here should not be indefinite,'' he said in the statement.
Ending his second overseas trip, Bush made a plea for peace.
Before cheering troops, he also signed into law a defense spending bill passed by Congress that includes 1.9 billion to boost pay, benefits and health care for American troops.
PHOTO CAPTION:
President Bush greets U.S. soldiers at the U.S. military base Camp Bondsteel, 25 miles (40 kilometers) southeast of Kosovo's capital Pristina, Tuesday, July 24, 2001. (AP Photo/Doug Mills)
- Jul 24 1:13 PM ET