Bahrain welcomes Bush amid protests

RED CARPET: King Hamad says longstanding links with the US Navy have secured freedom of navigation in the Gulf. (AFP)

US president George W. Bush was warmly welcomed by leaders in Bahrain on Saturday during a tour of Gulf Arab allies to rally support against Iran and for the Middle East peace process, although about 250 demonstrators took to the streets.

Bush was greeted at the airport by King Hamad, who led a red-carpet welcome for the first US president to visit the small Gulf kingdom which serves as home to the US Navy's Fifth Fleet.

Bush, who flew in from Kuwait, was later honoured at an official greeting ceremony at one of the royal palaces, where King Hamad hailed the US as "a friend, an ally and a partner".

The monarch expressed "pride" in Manama's longstanding links with the US Navy, which he said had "secured freedom of navigation" in the Gulf.

Tight security measures were evident in Manama as Bahraini police and special forces deployed along the main roads festooned with US and Bahraini flags.

Bahrain is a major non-Nato ally of Washington and has a free trade agreement with the US.

Bush warned while in Israel on the first leg of a Middle East trip that Iran posed "a threat to world peace" and should not be allowed to develop the know-how to build a nuclear weapon. Iran denies seeking nuclear arms.

He was expected to hold talks with King Hamad and visit the Fifth Fleet base in Manama, before travelling on to the UAE and Saudi Arabia. His week-long Middle East tour ends in Egypt on Wednesday.

But many members of the majority Shi'ite community in Bahrain have made clear they do not share the government's enthusiasm about Bush's visit to the Gulf archipelago, which is ruled by a Sunni dynasty.

About 250 people picketed near the US embassy in Manama after Bush's arrival to voice their opposition to his government's policies in the Middle East and support for Israel.

"Get out of Bahrain, criminal," read one of the banners raised by the protesters. "No to the US military presence in Bahrain", "America cares for oil, not democracy", said other banners.

Dozens of security men were deployed around the embassy as the sit-in took place some 500 metres away.

The protest was organised by several Sunni and Shi'ite political groupings, mainly from the opposition, but including some Sunni Islamist groups close to the government.

"We want to tell the US president that he is not welcome, and that he is not a friend of Arab and Bahraini peoples," said Ibrahim Sharif, secretary general of the leftist National Democratic Action Association.

"President Bush praises the Bahraini regime saying it is democratic and reformist... This is just politicians complimenting each other," Sharif told newswire AFP.

Two other protests took place on the eve of Bush's arrival.

Bush's tour comes amid an escalation of tensions between the US and Iran after Washington reported a weekend face-off in the Strait of Hormuz entrance to the Gulf.

Tehran accuses Washington of using the incident in the waterway - a vital conduit for energy supplies - as a propaganda stunt to paint Iran in a bad light during the Middle East trip.

In his weekly radio address, delivered from Kuwait, Bush called upon Arab nations to play their role in helping the Palestinians reach a peace deal and achieving an overall reconciliation with Israel.

They have "a responsibility both to support [Palestinian] president [Mahmud] Abbas, prime minister [Salam] Fayyad, and other Palestinian leaders as they work for peace, and to work for a larger reconciliation between Israel and the Arab world," said the president.

Before Kuwait he made his first presidential trip to Israel and the West Bank, where he said he believed an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty would be signed within a year.

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