President Peter Stoyanov assessed the handover of Yugoslavia`s ex-president Slobodan Milosevic to the International Tribunal in the Hague as an `important and very bold step,` the presidential Press Secretariat said. Earlier on Friday, the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry issued a declaration welcoming the Serbian Government`s decision on the handover. The President sees Milosevic`s handover to the International Tribune as a sign of respect for UN decisions, commitment to international law and the rule of law, and a strong determination to break with the past. `The Milosevic regime has caused enormous suffering and deprivations to the peoples of former Yugoslavia over the last ten years; worse yet, it posed extraordinary obstalces to the aspiration of the rest of the countries in Southeastern Europe to integrate into the all-European space of security, stability and prosperity. I therefore view the extradition decision as a categorical message to the peoples of the region that violence and crimes against humanity never go unpunished and justice triumphs above everything else,` Stoyanov is quoted as saying. `Bulgaria welcomes the Serbian Government`s decision to hand former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic over to the International Tribunal in the Hague,` the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a declaration faxed to BTA earlier on Friday. `This is an extension of the democratic expression of will of the Serbian people and a logical completion of the democratic changes which began in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the autumn of 2000,` the declaration says further on. `We welcome this act because it will lead to a deepening of the democratic process in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, to an acceleration of Yugoslavia`s re-integration into the international community and to creation of prerequisites for the country`s accelerated economic reconstruction,` the declaration reads.

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