Bush and Prodi keep aside strains to profess bonhomie

Rome: US President George W. Bush and Italian premier Romano Prodi professed a strong friendship yesterday, seeking to publicly put aside strains over two ongoing trials against Americans and Italy's withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

In Rome, thousands of peace activists took to the streets yesterday in a noisy march protesting against the visit of Bush to the capital. Chanting "No Bush, No War", the marchers also slammed Prodi for hosting Bush "with honours".

Bush greeted reporters at a joint news conference in Italian with a "Buon giorno" and extended an open invitation for the premier to visit him in the United States. Prodi addressed the US president with the informal "tu" and tolerated Bush's afternoon coffee with opposition leader Silvio Berlusconi.

"Our relations are pretty darn solid," Bush said.

Prodi expressed gratitude for the United States' willingness to come Europe's way on cutting greenhouse gas, saying it sent "a message of cooperation that a few months ago didn't seem possible".

"I think we will make even more great strides together," Prodi added - listing areas of common interests such as Kosovo, Lebanon and Afghanistan. "We basically agree on how the future of the world should look, should be," Prodi said.

But the leaders avoided uncomfortable topics - such as the trial that opened in Milan against 26 Americans accused of kidnapping a terror suspect from Milan as part of the CIA's extraordinary renditions programme and the trial in Rome against a US soldier accused of killing an Italian intelligence officer in Baghdad in 2005. "There was no talk about the legal issues," Prodi said, adding Bush said the cases should not conflict with their friendship.

But Bush also fielded a question from an Italian reporter about his plans to meet later with Berlusconi, with whom he has shared a warm relationship ever since Berlusconi was Italy's leader. Berlusconi suffered a close election defeat to Prodi, a bitter political rival, last April. Bush said Prodi didn't "blame" him for the get-together.

There was no denying the Bush-Berlusconi friendship. In 2001, Berlusconi went to the White House five months after taking office. Prodi, in office for more than a year, still hasn't been - although Bush said he wanted to rectify that.

Bush's limousine briefly stalled during a ride to the American embassy in Rome and then could not squeeze through its gates, prompting him to get out, wave to the crowd and enter on foot.

Bush was on his way to meet a religious group at the US embassy during his one-day visit to Italy when his car troubles began, stopping the entire motorcade for about five minutes.

The car eventually restarted before stopping at the embassy gates, and a mechanic could later be seen working on it with its hood up on the embassy grounds.

Bush's back-up limousine was pressed into service for his next ride to the Italian prime minister's office nearby.