China dropped its objections to allow the UN resolution be adopted by the Security Council in New York yesterday, paving the way for the NATO peacekeeping forces to enter Kosovo.
In Washington President Clinton avoided a triumphalist tone when he said: "We now have a chance to replace violence with peace." But he added: "We have to make sure that the Serbs keep their commitments. That means their forces must rapidly and peacefully leave Kosovo under the agreed timetable, 11 days from yesterday."
The UN peacekeeping resolution was adopted by 14 to nil, with China abstaining, after a short debate at the Security Council. The meeting began soon after the NATO Secretary General, Mr Javier Solana, told his UN counterpart, Mr Kofi Annan, that the bombing campaign had been suspended. Russia and China refused to have a vote on the resolution until the bombing was halted.
Addressing the council before the vote, Yugoslavia's UN ambassador, Mr Vladislav Jovanovic, said that his country had succeeded in its two main goals of "successfully" defending itself against NATO "aggression" and keeping Kosovo part of Yugoslavia.
He said the indefinite mandate of the international force was unacceptable and a "gross violation" of Yugoslav sovereignty. He also accused the council of trying to dismember Yugoslavia by passing a resolution allowing for what he called the secession of Kosovo.
China's attempt to amend the resolution to reduce NATO's power to act militarily if necessary was rejected by the other states. Another Chinese amendment to emphasise the authority of the council was accepted.
President Clinton, speaking in the press room of the White House surrounded by his chief aides, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Hugh Shelton, refrained from using the word "victory" in his first reaction to the end of the campaign. He said the Kosovars had been victims of terrible atrocities.
"Their only hope was that the world would not turn away in the face of ethnic cleansing and killing, that the world would take a stand. We did, for 78 days. Because we did, the Kosovars will go home."
The President, who had earlier spoken to President Boris Yeltsin, went out of his way to praise the role of Russia as well as the NATO allies.
Asked if he felt "vindicated against the criticism that the air campaign would not work," Mr Clinton replied: "Our people in uniform, starting with our Secretary of Defence [Mr William Cohen] are the ones that have been vindicated by this."
He said that the US "should feel vindicated when the people go home and when they're safe and when we can say that we, as a nation, have played a role in reversing ethnic cleansing."
Mr Clinton refused to speculate on how long the NATO force will have to stay in Kosovo. "We will define our objectives and proceed to implement them."
Asked if he could see the peacekeeping force leaving Kosovo while President Slobodan Milosevic was still in power, Mr Clinton said that he wanted to see "all the nations of south-eastern Europe coming closer together" and then "becoming more integrated with the economic and security structure of Europe", the way Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic did after the fall of communism.
"And I don't see how Serbia can participate in that unless they have a leadership that is committed to a multi-ethnic, multi-religious democracy and to genuine democracy and human rights," the President said.
He later delivered a national televised address.