By DUSAN STOJANOVIC, Associated Press WriterFri May 11, 11:39 AM ET

Serbia's pro-democracy parties have reached a power-sharing deal to form a new government, the hardline parliament speaker said Friday, an agreement that averts the possibility of his radical ultranationalists regaining power.

Western governments and Serbia's neighbors were alarmed this week by the election of an admirer of Serbia's late nationalist President Slobodan Milosevic as the parliament speaker — the No. 2 post in the country.

Earlier Friday, U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns warned that if Tomislav Nikolic's Radical Party came to power in Serbia, it would "seriously harm" the country's relations with the West.

The Radicals are staunchly anti-Western and used to back Milosevic's warmongering policies in the Balkans, while their own boss, Vojislav Seselj, is awaiting trial at the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands. The Radicals also oppose the Western-backed U.N. plan for the Serbian province of Kosovo, which envisages internationally supervised self-rule.

Nikolic told The Associated Press on Friday that a power-sharing deal had been reached between pro-Western President Boris Tadic and caretaker Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, whose talks on a new Cabinet had been deadlocked for nearly four months.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070511/ap_on_re_eu/serbia_government_1