(Adds statement paragraph 2, changes dateline from Sarajevo)

THE HAGUE, June 1 (Reuters) - Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect General Zdravko Tolimir, who was arrested on Thursday, has been delivered to the Hague war crimes tribunal in the Netherlands, NATO said on Friday.

"In a joint operation involving NATO and the (European Union peacekeeping force) EUFOR, detained fugitive indicted war criminal Zdravko Tolimir has been delivered from Bosnia-Herzegovina to the authorities ... in The Hague," the alliance said in a statement.

He was flown from the Bosnian capital Sarajevo on a NATO aircraft after spending the night in a NATO base near the city.

During the 1992-95 Bosnia war, Tolimir was a close aide of Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic, one of the top fugitives wanted by The Hague.

He is alleged to have helped Mladic plan and execute the massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica in 1995, and is thought by military experts to have helped the commander evade arrest since.

Tolimir, 58, was arrested on the border between Serbia and Bosnia's Serb Republic. Officials said the former general was ill, maybe with cancer.

SREBRENICA MASSACRE

His arrest leaves five ethnic Serbs from Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia still on the run, including Mladic and his political boss Radovan Karadzic.

Both men are indicted for genocide for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre as well as for the 43-month siege of Sarajevo, which claimed over 10,000 lives.

His delivery to The Hague will boost the prospects of both Serbia and Bosnia for closer ties with the European Union, analysts said.

Serbia's talks with the EU were frozen last year over Belgrade's failure to arrest Mladic. The EU says talks can resume if Serbia makes concrete moves to cooperate with The Hague by arresting fugitives.

Bosnia's talks are also stalled over delayed reforms and the persistent nationalist leanings of the Serbian half of the country and those talks are likely to benefit from the arrest, the analysts said.

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