Romania on Tuesday hailed the landslide victory of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia as a decisive step towards political normalization in neighboring Yugoslavia.
A foreign ministry communiqué described the Serbian parliamentary election result as a "firm option of the Serb people for democracy."
"This victory marks a decisive step towards the normalization of the political situation in Serbia and confirms the irreversible course of the democratic process in Yugoslavia," it added.
The communiqué affirmed Bucharest's confidence that Romania and Yugoslavia would strengthen their relations and contribute to strengthening security and stability in central and south-eastern Europe.
President Vojislav Kostunica's DOS, an alliance of 18 parties, won 65 percent of the votes in Saturday's poll, giving them 176 of the 250 seats in Serbia's powerful assembly.
The Socialist Party of Slobodan Milosevic suffered a crushing defeat, garnering just 13.5 percent of the votes, or 37 seats.
In Romania itself earlier this month, left-of-center Ion Iliescu won a landslide presidential victory in a run-off ballot.
Iliescu served as Romania's first elected president from 1990 to 1996 after the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was overthrown in 1989.
His Social Democrat party (PDSR) captured 46 percent of seats in parliament in a parliamentary election on November 26 -- BUCHAREST (AFP)
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