(Adds details of indictment, ICTY statement, court appearance)

By Svebor Kranjc

THE HAGUE, June 1 (Reuters) - A Bosnian Serb general, accused of complicity in the Srebrenica massacre in the 1992-95 Bosnia war, was in custody at the Hague tribunal on Friday, improving Serbia's chances of closer ties with the EU.

Belgrade sent a dozen war crimes fugitives to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in 2005 but the handovers, a key condition of talks with Brussels, dried up with six top suspects still at large.

Zravko Tolimir's arrest was the first in more than a year. He will appear before the tribunal on Monday. Serbia's negotiations over a so-called Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the European Union were frozen a year ago after Belgrade failed to keep a promise to arrest Ratko Mladic, who has been indicted on genocide charges.

"Tolimir's arrest leaves only the Tribunal's two most wanted, General Ratko Mladic, former Bosnian Serb Army chief, and Radovan Karadzic, former Bosnian Serb President, as fugitives from international justice for crimes committed in Srebrenica," the tribunal said in a statement.

The European Commission welcomed Tolimir's arrest and said it would resume partnership talks with Serbia, probably this month.

"Serbia has now demonstrated clear commitment to full cooperation with the ICTY," EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said in a statement.

Tolimir, 58, was arrested on the border between Serbia and Bosnia's Serb Republic and was flown from the Bosnian capital Sarajevo on a NATO aircraft after spending the night in a NATO base near the city. He is now in the detention unit of the U.N. tribunal.

During the Bosnian war, Tolimir was a close aide of Mladic and is alleged to have helped him plan and execute the massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica in 1995, an event which U.N. courts ruled is genocide. He is also thought by military experts to have helped the commander evade arrest since.

MLADIC NEXT?

Officials said the former general, who faces charges of genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, extermination, persecution and forcible transfer, was ill, maybe with cancer.

His arrest is unlikely to have been a lucky accident. Rumours circled that he was simply dumped over the border, to reduce the political fallout among Serbia's ultranationalists.

Analysts suggested it could be the first step to the capture of Mladic, on the run since 2001 when he lost the protection of toppled Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic.

The arrest was a confusing signal from Serbia whose recent tilt towards Russia -- in the hope that will prevent the independence of breakaway Kosovo province -- has led a Western think-tank to suggest Belgrade is "turning away from Europe".

The fate of Kosovo, to be decided by the U.N. Security Council, is now the most contentious issue in the Balkans.

The West supports the independence demand of its 90 percent ethnic Albanian majority but Moscow, backing Belgrade, seems prepared to delay that indefinitely.

Del Ponte's spokeswoman, while welcoming the news of Tolimir's arrest, stressed Serbia was still under an obligation to arrest and transfer the remaining five suspects, believed to be in reach of Serbia.

Del Ponte is due to visit Serbia next week to make a fresh assessment.

EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said a firm date for EU talks would be set after del Ponte returned from Belgrade. "I expect this date of the first round of negotiations will be indeed in June," Rehn said. (Additional reporting by Berlin, Brussels, Sarajevo and Belgrade bureaux)

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