(BRUSSELS) - The European Union welcomed Wednesday the transfer of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic to a UN tribunal, but urged Serbia to bring other war crimes suspects to justice.

"The Serbian authorities' arrest of Radovan Karadzic and subsequent transfer constitute an important stage in the process of reconciliation in the Western Balkans and Serbia's rapprochement with the European Union," the EU's French presidency said.

"The European Union calls on Serbia to continue this work and to locate and transfer the remaining two indictees still at large," a statement said.

Karadzic arrived in the Netherlands early Wednesday to face genocide charges over the 1995 massacre of almost 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, Europe's worst post-World War II atrocity.

His ally, former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic, remains on the run, as does Goran Hadzic, a 49-year-old former rebel leader wanted for Croatian war crimes.

The extent of Serbia's cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) is a key condition for sealing closer ties with the European Union.

On Tuesday, EU ambassadors decided to wait until the ICTY chief prosecutor, Serge Brammertz, had been able to travel to Belgrade to make a new assessment of Serbia's willingness to work together more closely.

Brussels and Belgrade signed a Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) in April, but the 27 EU nations have vowed not to ratify it until Serbia has demonstrated "full cooperation" with The Hague-based tribunal.

But the arrest of Karadzic has been seen in Brussels as a significant step on Serbia's road to EU membership.

The Netherlands, whose government eventually resigned over accusations that Dutch peacekeepers watched on in Srebrenica, and Belgium have notably opposed rewarding Serbia until Mladic is alongside Karadzic in The Hague.

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