US President George W. Bush will thank an Iraq war ally, Italy, and try to move beyond past differences with a war critic, French President Jacques Chirac, in a hectic day of diplomacy.
Bush and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi will sit down for talks and hold a joint news conference on Saturday to conclude the US president's 36-hour visit to the Italian capital.
Bush's trip to Rome took place against a backdrop of anti-war street protests and violence in Iraq where five more US soldiers were killed yesterday.
Thousands of protesters opposed to the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq marched in Rome on Friday. There were skirmishes with police, and some bottles and flares were thrown, but it was not the mayhem many had feared. Berlusconi called it a "flop".
However, the possibility of more protests awaited Bush in Paris.
There, Bush will hold talks and have a working dinner with Chirac, who thwarted Bush's attempt for a UN Security Council resolution last year authorising war against Iraq.
Chirac wants a new UN resolution to have a fixed timetable for withdrawing US-led troops from Iraq.
The United States and Britain on Friday proposed giving Iraq's new leaders the right to send home foreign troops, a concession Baghdad's foreign minister said would speed up adoption of a resolution on Iraq's future.
On Sunday, Bush goes to Normandy to mark the 60th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. White House aides said that Bush's speech will commemorate World War Two sacrifice and that Iraq was not expected to be mentioned.
Bush came to Europe buoyed by the formation of a caretaker Iraqi government to guide Iraq to elections in January.
An added bonus, at least in the eyes of some Europeans, may have been the resignation of CIA director George Tenet, who had expressed confidence to Bush that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.