* Serbian political climate improves, easing ties with court
* But cooperation imperfect unless Mladic arrested
By Ivana Sekularac
BELGRADE, Sept 28 (Reuters) - The U.N. court for war crimes in ex-Yugoslavia will not deem its job done until Serbia hands over fugitive genocide suspect Ratko Mladic, its chief judge said, citing a key condition for Belgrade's EU membership bid.
In an interview, Patrick Robinson, president of the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), said the political climate in Serbia had improved over the past three years and brought "better cooperation" with the court.
"However, there is a sense in which the relationship will not be perfect until that arrest and surrender has been accomplished," Robinson, who in the past presided over the trial of Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic, told Reuters.
Serbia's failure to arrest Mladic so far sparked criticism from ICTY prosecutor Serge Brammertz in a June report, prompting European Union member states to wait further before assessing Belgrade's application to join the 27-nation bloc.
"Everybody working in The Hague, all the judges, the prosecutor, everybody associated with the work of the tribunal, will not consider their work accomplished in the absence of Mladic being tried," Robinson said.
Indicted for the murder of 8,000 Muslims in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica and the 43-month siege of Bosnia's capital Sarajevo in which 10,000 people were killed, Mladic is believed to be hiding in Serbia, perhaps in the capital Belgrade.
"In a real sense the tribunal's role will not be fulfilled without the arrest and trial of Mladic," said Robinson, a Jamaican national. "The crimes that he is charged with demonstrate that he was at the apex of the entire system which led to all the crimes being committed."
The ICTY was established in the 1990s to bring to justice those who committed crimes in the Balkan wars of the time as local courts had no political will to deal with them.
The court has indicted a total of 161 people, two of whom are still at large -- Mladic and Croatian Serb separatist leader Goran Hadzic. It has sentenced 62 people from the former Yugoslavia, and acquitted 12. Currently, 34 are standing trial, including Bosnian Serb wartime political chief Radovan Karadzic.
The tribunal is scheduled to close down in 2014.
Robinson, who was visiting Belgrade to promote a project to help local courts handle war crimes, said the United Nations was working on developing a mechanism that would allow Mladic to be tried according to ICTY standards after 2014.
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