An immediate humanitarian catastrophe may have been averted. The hundreds of thousands of Albanians who have been terrorised from their homes by Slobodan Milosevic's forces since last spring may now feel they can return home. The tens of thousands living in the open in the mountains may now get home before the harsh Kosovan winter kills many.

This will only happen if the deal announced yesterday is implemented quickly. The 2,000-member force the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is to assemble as "compliance verifiers" may take time to assemble. It is by far the largest mission put together by the OSCE, which has a mixed record in terms of efficiency in former Yugoslavia.

Even if the force does arrive in Kosovo within days, rather than weeks or months as some fear, it will only be effective if it has teeth.

Will it be allowed move freely and quickly to check reports of violence in remote parts of the province? Will it be allowed inspect military bases to see what weapons and forces are there? Or just as the UN weapons inspectors have been constantly stymied and frustrated by obduracy ordered from Baghdad, will the OSCE mission face daily petty obstruction ordered from Belgrade?

Only if the OSCE mission arrives soon, has considerable powers and complete freedom of movement will the masses of Kosovar Albanians who have fled their homes be confident enough to return.

If the short-term humanitarian problem is resolved, the political problem will remain. Over 90 per cent of the population of the Serbian province of Kosovo is Albanian. Many have supported independence for decades. More have done so since 1989 when President Milosevic took away the level of autonomy Kosovo had up to then, and insisted that Kosovo's Albanian children learn the Serbian curriculum rather than their own.

The Serbian security forces' onslaught on the general population in turn radicalised almost all of it. The stated aim of crushing the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), a small, badly organised independence-seeking guerrilla group, instead created a groundswell of support for independence.

Mr Milosevic is considerably happier with the political outcome of the latest talks than the KLA. Before yesterday's deal he had a province whose population wanted independence, and faced imminent NATO air strikes which might have hastened the loss of the province to Serbia altogether.

Now he has a breathing space and a political deal which may suit him very well. He pointed out the obvious yesterday: the deal both averts the threat of military attacks on his country while also guaranteeing Kosovo remains in Serbia.

According to the man who negotiated the deal, Mr Richard Holbrooke, President Milosevic is to announce a political process which "we hope will mark a turning point" in the province. But Kosovan Albanian political representatives said they were not holding their breath.

"We fear once again that Milosevic is promising something he will not live up to", the director of the Kosova Information Centre in London, Mr Isa Zymberi, told this newspaper yesterday. "From his previous pattern we know he says one thing and then does another. The international community will have to revisit this area, but this time it will be very difficult to take any military action with 2,000 OSCE people on the ground."

Mr Zymberi is the representative of the alternative government in Kosovo which says it represents the people of Kosovo. Albanians call the province Kosova, Serbs call it Kosovo.

President Milosevic's statements yesterday concentrated more on the guarantee that Kosovo remains Serbian rather than the apparent agreement in principle to return some autonomy to Kosovo. He has once again secured a public statement of international opposition to Kosovan independence, and determination that it will remain part of Serbia.

Only time will tell if he takes the autonomy notion seriously. Political talks are to start, according to the deal, but it is not known when and under what conditions. The announcement by President Milosevic of a new "political process" as promised by Mr Holbrooke is still awaited.

The Kosovo Liberation Army said the accord was unacceptable precisely because it guaranteed that Kosovo remain within Serbia. According to Mr Pleurat Sejbiu, a spokesman for the KLA political wing: "There is nothing there, no basis for the future. All Albanians want to be out of Serbia and we will not give up our wish for independence, even if it requires a war for years and years."

The KLA wants full autonomy with a three-year transition period that would lead to a vote on self-determination. However, if this deal buys peace, the KLA will get no support from the international community for its demands. In short, if President Milosevic abides by the letter and spirit of this deal, and of course that's a big if, the KLA and Kosovans seeking independence have no outside allies.

While the prospects for success of the political side of the deal are uncertain, those organising the logistical side also have a major challenge. The OSCE faces a task of unprecedented scale in mounting a 2,000strong "verification mission" to be deployed in Kosovo to verify Yugoslav troop and security force withdrawals.

The OSCE is the only international security organisation, bar the United Nations, with membership from what were the western and eastern Cold War power blocs. The OSCE's founding charter states it is "the primary instrument in its region for early warning, conflict prevention, crisis management and post-conflict rehabilitation in Europe."

It has long been the poor relation of international organisations, with the major powers preferring to do their security business through military alliances such as NATO and the former Warsaw Pact.

But since the end of the Cold War the OSCE has gradually evolved into a higher-profile non-military conflict-prevention and crisis-management body. While NATO provides the military power and threats of military action, the OSCE has become involved after, or instead of, the military. It has, for example, monitored the post-Dayton agreement elections in Bosnia and in Croatia and Albania, and has permanent observers posted to several former Soviet republics, notably Moldova, Georgia and Tajikistan.

This will be by far its biggest test. It is to ensure freedom of movement for refugees and is also expected to organise any poll that takes place.

From an Irish point of view the shift in international emphasis from NATO bombs to OSCE monitors is welcome. Ireland may participate in this mission, while its stance on military neutrality meant that if NATO was being used to deal with the problem, it could only watch.

But the reality is that the neutrality-friendly OSCE mission was only made possible by the credible NATO threat. And in the light of President Milosevic's record, it is not far-fetched to speculate that similar threats will be needed in the future if the OSCE is to have a chance of succeeding.