AIR WAR COULD END BY SUNDAY.

Byline: Alison Mitchell The New York Times

President Clinton declared Friday that he was ``anxious to end the bombing'' in Yugoslavia, and the Pentagon said the 10-week-old air war could end as early as Sunday if Serbia begins a troop withdrawal from Kosovo.

As Washington became more optimistic that peace in the Balkans was in fact at hand, Clinton also sought to assure the American public that the nation had pursued a ``goal that has been worth fighting for'' - stability in Europe and the return of more than 800,000 ethnic Albanians to their homes in Kosovo.

``There is an enormous opportunity to be seized here,'' the president said in the ornate East Room of the White House, ``a chance to shift our focus from defeating something evil to building something good, a chance to work with our allies to bring a stable and prosperous and democratic southeastern Europe in which people are never again singled out for destruction simply because of their religious faith or their ethnic origin.''

Though a NATO commander is to meet his counterparts from Yugoslavia and Russia today to establish a timetable for withdrawal and verification procedures, NATO kept up its bombing campaign for a 73rd day - hitting 51 targets in 24 hours, according to the Pentagon.

The strikes avoided Belgrade, hitting ammunition depots in Novi Pazar, Boljevac and Kursumlija and oil or gas installations in Sombor and Leskovac.

U.S. officials emphasized that most of the latest bombing was focused on forces in the field in Kosovo, and they said they had yet to see any evidence of Serbian withdrawals. Serbian army units clashed Friday with rebels trying to hold a strategic mountain called Pastrik. The Pentagon reported Serbian counterinsurgency operations against Kosovo separatist guerrillas but said the fighting seemed to have eased. But there were also reports that the Serbs were still forcing people from villages, officials said.

``I think it's important that we continue the military action against the military targets until we have some evidence that there are more than words here,'' Clinton said.

Peaceful signs

But there were clear signs that NATO was wrapping up its war effort and preparing to send a peacekeeping force into Kosovo. For instance, Pentagon spokesman Kenneth H. Bacon said Friday that the United States had suspended the deployment of 36 F-15 fighters to Turkey.

If the end of the air war looked imminent, the political debate raged on over just what NATO and Clinton had accomplished with a military campaign that was limited to an air war that would carry little risk of allied casualties. More than 800,000 ethnic Albanians were expelled from Kosovo by Serbian forces and now need to be returned to a devastated land requiring a vast reconstruction effort.

Democrats said this week's diplomatic breakthrough was a vindication of the president's policy and persistence with the air strikes. ``It's clear the air campaign has been effective,'' said Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the minority leader. ``It has forced Milosevic to acknowledge that his options are running out.''

One beneficiary of the accord was Vice President Al Gore. If all goes as planned, he will be able to seek the Democratic presidential nomination free of the shadow of the air war, or of the possibility that American ground forces would invade Kosovo.

Republicans, however, were critical of the accord, emphasizing that President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia, indicted on charges of war crimes, had not been toppled.

``I think it is right and proper that all parties work to find peace and justice in the troubled Kosovo region,'' said the Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert. ``However, we should not let exuberance get in the way of the hard reality that Slobodan Milosevic is still in control of Serbia.''

The Saddam precedent

Sen. John McCain of Arizona, a Republican presidential contender, pointed to President Saddam Hussein of Iraq as the model for the problems caused by leaving a dictator in power after a war. ``The fact that it was an air campaign virtually guaranteed that he would remain in power,'' he said of Milosevic.

Sen. Jesse Helms, Republican of North Carolina and the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, demanded that the president seek formal approval from Congress before sending any troops into Kosovo.

He also served notice that he would use confirmation hearings, now planned for this month, on the nomination of Richard Holbrooke as chief American diplomat at the United Nations to scrutinize American policy in the Balkans.

WHAT'S NEXT

Many details must be worked out to make the Kosovo peace accord stick. The proposed plan and efforts under way to resolve the remaining issues:

NATO, Russian and Yugoslav generals will meet at an undisclosed location today to work out the technicalities of the Serb withdrawal from Kosovo. Yugoslav officers are expected to demand safe passage of their troops out of the province.

Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said NATO airstrikes could end Sunday or later next week, if Yugoslav officials cooperate. He warned, however, that if the Serbs hesitate in accepting NATO's terms, the bombing could continue many more days.

The peace plan approved Thursday in Belgrade suggests that Yugoslav forces could be out of Kosovo within about seven days. A 15-mile buffer zone will separate Serb and international forces.

NATO officials must form and deploy the 50,000-strong international peace force. It is expected to contain non-NATO troops, including Russians. About 2,000 U.S. Marines will likely be the first NATO forces to enter Kosovo, before eventually being replaced by conventional allied ground troops.

After all the Serb forces have left, some Yugoslav units will be let back into Kosovo, but only to guard borders and Serb historic and cultural sites.

Foreign ministers from the G-8 group - Russia and the seven major industrialized democracies - must draft a U.N. resolution to formalize the peace plan. While a meeting was expected Sunday, a U.S. official said it will be delayed because Russia has not yet agreed to the details of the peace plan.

The U.N. Security Council must pass the resolution endorsing the peace deal, notably the dispatch of an international force and a new civil administration to Kosovo to make the return of refugees possible.

SOURCE: Associated Press

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Photo, Box

PHOTO A refugee flashes a victory sign during a children's poetry show Friday at a camp in Albania.

Jerome Delay/Associated Press

BOX: WHAT`S NEXT (see text)