President Clinton has called for a Marshall Plan to help rebuild the Balkans region and as a counterweight to the "ethnic exclusivity" preached by President Slobodan Milosevic.
His suggestion came as indications emerged in Brussels that NATO may be digging in for a long campaign as it prepares refugee camps for winter.
Mr Clinton repeated that Mr Milosevic must meet all NATO's conditions before the air strikes can end. He was clearly not impressed by Yugoslav claims of a partial troop withdrawal, saying "partial withdrawals can only mean continued civil war". The Kosovans must be able to return home in safety and "for this to happen Serb forces must leave". Addressing several hundred veterans of foreign wars at the National Defence University, Mr Clinton called for a major US effort towards the economic recovery of the Balkans. "South-eastern Europe after the Cold War was free but poor. As long as they are poor, they will offer a less compelling counterweight to the kind of ethnic exclusivity and oppression that Mr Milosevic preaches," he said.
Mr Clinton said the US would work with the World Bank and its European allies to invest in the Balkans to promote peaceful and stable regimes.
He underlined the moral justification for the NATO air strikes and evoked the Holocaust as a partial parallel, calling the Serb campaign in Kosovo "an attack . . . on the dignity of all people".
"Though his ethnic cleansing is not the same as the ethnic extermination of the Holocaust, the two are related - both vicious, premeditated, systematic oppression, fuelled by religious and ethnic hatred," the President said.
In Brussels, NATO said that although the alliance is ready to deploy rapidly a ground troop entry to Kosovo - KFOR - the moment Mr Milosevic accepts the five conditions, it accepts that he may delay. A delay would result in the refugees remaining in the camps through the winter, with NATO preparing to dig in for a long campaign.
Col Fabrizio Maltinti reported on the progress of the camps in Brussels yesterday, saying a great deal had been done to improve the quality of life, but some camps were "very exposed and would be awful in winter". On the ground in Kosovo, a senior Yugoslav army officer said a "large number" of Yugoslav troops had begun withdrawing from the province.
Gen Vladimir Lazarevic was speaking in Pristina, the provincial capital. But NATO said it saw no sign that Serb troops were actually withdrawing from Kosovo, as the army command had announced earlier this week, although some units were on the move in the province as a result of NATO air raids.
The NATO spokesman, Mr Jamie Shea, said the North Atlantic Council has been working on a plan to go into operation when Mr Milosevic accepts the five conditions and has withdrawn his troops. There will be mines to defuse, the resettlement of refugees will begin, a transitional authority will be established, and lines of communication will be reconnected, he said. oder was in Beijing and yesterday, President Chirac was in Moscow, the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, was in Aachen, and President Clinton addressed the National Defence University in the US. All were firm in the message that the conflict continues until the five conditions are accepted.
The G8 Ministers are expected to meet today to work on a draft resolution to table at the UN Security Council resolution.
President Chirac said yesterday in Moscow his talks with Russian leaders had brought some progress, and he was sure Moscow would not end its Kosovo mediation efforts despite threats to do so. Mr Chirac was speaking after a day of talks with President Yeltsin, the Russian Foreign Minister, Mr Igor Ivanov, and Moscow's Balkan envoy, Mr Viktor Chernomyrdin.
In Washington, President Clinton signed a condolence book for the victims of the NATO bombing of China's Belgrade embassy and was informed that Chinese President Jiang Zemin would accept a telephone call from him, a White House spokesman said yesterday.