By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, October 14, 1998; Page A01

BELGRADE, Oct. 13—U.S. special envoy Richard C. Holbrooke and Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic confirmed today that they had agreed on a plan to end the conflict in Kosovo by sending 2,000 international inspectors to the troubled province and scheduling regular overflights by NATO surveillance aircraft as a deterrent to further violence.

In accords worked out over nine days of talks here, the Belgrade government also agreed to a series of steps aimed at forging a political settlement to the Kosovo crisis -- including staging elections in the province within nine months and granting a general amnesty for those who took part in the seven-month conflict between Yugoslav forces and separatist ethnic-Albanian guerrillas.

The government pledged further that it will meet the long-standing demand of Kosovo's ethnic Albanians that the local police force reflect the ethnic makeup of the province -- meaning that most officers would be Albanian. At present, all police officers in Kosovo are Serbs, even though ethnic Albanians compose more than 90 percent of the provincial population of 2 million.

Holbrooke pointedly declined to declare the crisis over as he departed for New York. Much work needs to be done, he said, to ensure that Yugoslav officials follow through on their commitment to fulfill the demands of a Sept. 23 U.N. Security Council resolution aimed at promoting a peaceful resolution in Kosovo, a province of Serbia, Yugoslavia's dominant republic.

Asked if he is optimistic that Milosevic will keep his word, President Clinton said: "Well, I'm neither optimistic nor pessimistic, because I have something better now. We have now a verification system, so we're not dependent upon our hopes. There will be facts on the ground which will tell us whether or not the compliance is there."

But Milosevic, in a brief statement broadcast on state television, declared that the agreement had removed the "danger of military intervention" -- a reference to NATO's decision early this morning to authorize airstrikes against Yugoslav targets if the Belgrade government does not terminate its military offensive against Kosovo's ethnic Albanians.

"We hope this will mark a turning point" in Kosovo's tortured history, Holbrooke said. He noted in particular the "unnecessary horror" of the past several months, during which more than 750 people were killed and tens of thousands of civilians were forced from their homes.

Milosevic did not mention the Security Council resolution or any of its terms, but Holbrooke said Milosevic will sign a document affirming his commitments this week. Neither side would discuss, however, whether the Yugoslav government must withdraw additional security forces from Kosovo or the actual number to be withdrawn. A withdrawal of troops from the province was a key demand of the Security Council resolution.

To comply fully with that demand, a White House official said, Milosevic must reduce military forces in Kosovo at least to the level of last February, when the government offensive began. This would mean that the 18,000 Yugoslav army troops there now would be pared to about 12,500 and that the 11,000 Serbian paramilitary policemen would drop to 6,500, the official said.

But U.S. officials were wary of being this specific in public. "I'm not going to get into a numbers game," said White House national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger. "We need to get forces . . . that have been introduced into the area leaving. Other forces, basically, [should be] either in garrison or in other non-threatening situations -- less road blocks, less of a police presence. This is an overall picture that we want to see in which the situation is less intimidating, less repressive, less violent so that people can get back to their homes and a negotiating process can begin."

Western officials had said previously that a troop withdrawal is necessary to convince more than 250,000 ethnic Albanian refugees that they can safely return to their homes. But a senior Western diplomat said that Milosevic has held to his claim that the government already has met all the requirements spelled out by the U.N. resolution.

In Washington, State Department spokesman James P. Rubin said that even if Belgrade is deemed to have largely met the Western demands by a Saturday deadline set by NATO, the United States will seek the approval of its allies to extend the order authorizing NATO airstrikes so that "the threat of force continues to hang over President Milosevic's head until we have full compliance."

A Western demand that Belgrade consent to cooperate with the international war crimes tribunal in investigating atrocities in Kosovo was only partially agreed to. Milosevic refused to accept the jurisdiction of the Hague-based tribunal but agreed to allow war crimes investigators to collect evidence. It was unclear how the promised general amnesty would affect those alleged to have committed atrocities.

U.S. and Yugoslav officials said that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a 55-nation group that includes the United States, would organize the inspection effort and that an agreement will be signed by Oct. 19 that spells out where the inspection teams will be based and how they will conduct their work. Many key provisions of the operation already have been agreed on, several officials said, including a U.S. demand that it be led by an American.

Holbrooke said also that NATO Secretary General Javier Solana and Gen. Wesley Clark, the alliance's supreme commander in Europe, will go to Belgrade this week to sign a separate agreement spelling out details of the aerial surveillance plan. He said he hopes Moscow will contribute planes to the effort, but the Russian ambassador in Belgrade was noncommittal. Yugoslavia has agreed that its air defense radar systems will be turned off during the overflights.

In a third major element of the agreement struck by Holbrooke and Milosevic, the Yugoslav government issued an 11-point statement late today that was read to government ministers by Serbian President Milan Milutinovic. It pledged, among other things, Belgrade's support for elections in Kosovo, a general amnesty and reform of the provincial police force.

Yugoslav officials and Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leadership, however, remain far apart on an agreement that would resolve Kosovo's future political status. Most ethnic Albanians favor independence; Western leaders have suggested some form of local autonomy.

Staff writer John F. Harris in Washington contributed to this report.