DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania (AFP) — President George W. Bush denied Sunday trying to "dictate" an end to Kenya's bloody political crisis, amid scaled-down hopes for US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's one-day mission to Nairobi.
On the second leg of a five-country Africa tour, Bush said he had consulted with Tanzania President Jakaya Kikwete on the turmoil in neighbouring Kenya, where officials have angrily warned against heavy-handed US pressure.
Bush said he and Rice "spent time discussing a mutual strategy with the president; how best can we help the process, not what we should do to dictate to the process, but what can Americans do to help the process move along."
Rice was due to meet Monday with President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga, whose feud over who won the December 27 presidential election plunged once stable Kenya into violence that has killed more than 1,000 people.
The top US diplomat was to urge both leaders to sign on to a power-sharing arrangement devised by former UN chief Kofi Annan, but was not bringing any US incentives, said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.
"Secretary Rice doesn't expect, I don't think, to come away tomorrow with a final deal," she said, adding that Kenya's leaders "are inching their way closer and they need a little bit of help to get there."
And Bush telephoned Annan "to thank him for the important work he is doing in Kenya to bring the parties together" and discuss Rice's trip, said US National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe.
On another front, Bush restated US support for Kosovo's independence from Serbia -- with international oversight -- and said the United States would work to prevent violence after the historic declaration.
Turning to the upcoming US elections, Kikwete acknowledged "excitement" in Africa about White House hopeful Barack Obama, a fierce Bush critic with a Kenyan father.
He urged Obama to treat the continent as well as the current president if he wins the November elections.
"Of course, people talk with excitement of Obama," said Kikwete. "The US is going to get a new president, whoever that is. For us, the most important thing is, let him be as good a friend of Africa as President Bush has been."
All smiles under a blazing sun, the two leaders signed a five-year, 698-million-dollar US aid package meant to help Tanzania build better roads, get electricity to more people, and increase its supply of safe drinking water.
"Rest assured that you will be remembered for many generations to come for the good things you have done for Tanzania and the good things you have done for Africa," Kikwete promised.
The agreement was the largest under Bush's Millennium Challenge Corporation programme, which tailors US aid to help countries that enact democratic and free-market reforms and fight corruption.
"My hope is that such an initiative will be part of an effort to transform parts of this country to become more hopeful places," said Bush, who came here from Benin and was bound for Rwanda, Ghana, and Liberia.
The US president also defended his handling of Africa's simmering regional disputes and heaped pressure on US lawmakers to renew funding for his global campaign against AIDS.
He rejected calls to drop a controversial requirement that one third of the money go to teach abstinence from sex.
The US leader has urged Congress to double funding for his plan from about 15 billion dollars over five years -- already the most spent by any country to fight an infectious disease -- to around 30 billion dollars.
"If this program is discontinued or disrupted, there would be so many people who lose hope, and certainly there will be death. You create more orphans," pleaded Tanzania's president.
Bush said he and Kikwete had discussed other tough political crises, including what he has called "genocide" in Darfur, and turmoil in Zimbabwe under President Robert Mugabe, a frequent target for US criticism.
"There's no doubt the people of Zimbabwe deserve a government that serves their interest and recognises their basic human rights and holds free and fair elections," Bush said, apparently referring to a March presidential vote.
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