TIRANA, Jul 22, 2008 (Xinhua via COMTEX News Network) -- The governments of Albania and Macedonia applauded on Tuesday the arrest of Radovan Karadzic, former Bosnian Serb leader hunted by a tribunal in The Hague. 

"The arrest of one of the most brutal figures of Serbia's ultranationalism and the culprit responsible for the massive and systematic genocide in Bosnia, deserves our greetings," said a statement from Prime Minister Sali Berisha's office. 

Albania hopes that Belgrade will track down Ratko Mladic, another genocide suspect, and other war criminals, wanted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague. 

The Macedonian government said on Tuesday that the arrest of Karadzic, 63, shows that the time has come to leave the tragic Balkan decade of the 1990s to the historians. 

"The countries from the region should focus towards the common European future for the Balkans as a whole," government spokesman Ivica Bocevski said in Skopje. 

Karadzic, who spent 12 years on the run, was seized late Monday by Serbian special forces near the country's capital city of Belgrade. 

Karadzic faces charges of genocide and crimes against humanity during the 1992-95 war, when he was president of the breakaway Republika Srpska in Bosnia.