ARUSHA, Tanzania — President Bush today recognized Kosovo's bold and historic bid for statehood, saying "The Kosavars are now independent."

Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leadership announced its independence from Serbia over the weekend, and suspense gripped the province today as its citizens awaited key backing from the United States and key European powers.

"It's something that I've advocated along with my government," Bush said in an interview on NBC's "Today."

By appealing directly to the U.S. and other nations for recognition, Kosovo's independence set up a showdown with Serbia — outraged at the imminent loss of its territory — and Russia.

Kosovo had formally remained a part of Serbia even though it has been administered by the U.N. and NATO since 1999, when NATO airstrikes ended former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic's crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists, which killed 10,000 people.

In April 2007, U.N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari recommended that Kosovo be granted internationally supervised independence. But talks that followed failed to yield an agreement between the ethnic Albanian leadership, which pushed for full statehood, and Serbia, which was willing to offer only autonomy.