Russia, France welcome result of Serbian presidential election

Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov said on Tuesday that Moscow was satisfied with the results of the presidential elections in Serbia, the Russian news agency Interfax reported.

Speaking to reporters in Moscow, Primakov said victorious ruling Socialist Party candidate Milan Milutinovic was "a more acceptable option" than Vojislav Seselj of the nationalist Radical Party.

In another report, AFP news agency said France welcomed Seselj's defeat in the elections.

"The fact that the candidate representing the extreme right was beaten is undoubtedly a positive point" , French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Anne Gazeau-Secret, quoted by the agency, said.

BBC Monitoring (http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk), based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.