ANKARA, Sept 14 (AFP) - The Turkish government Tuesday discreetly dropped a controversial plan to introduce legislation making adultery a jailable offence, opposition leader Deniz Baykal indicated.
Baykal, head of the social-democratic Republican People`s Party (CHP), told reporters after meeting leaders of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) that the two groups had decided to submit only jointly signed motions to a bill reforming the penal code.
This means the clause making adultery a jailable offense, which the AKP wanted to introduce into the bill, has effectively been abandoned.
"No motion that does not bear the signatures of both parties will be submitted to the assembly," Baykal said after a surprise 20-minute meeting with Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul and Justice Minister Cemil Cicek.
Gul is standing in for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is on an official visit to Tajikistan.
Baykal, flanked by the two AKP ministers, spoke as parliament convened in an extraordinary session to debate a sweeping series of amendments to the criminal code in hopes of easing Turkey`s bid to enter the European Union.
But the furore over the government clause -- including criticism from EU leaders -- that would have made adultery a jailable offense threatened to loom larger than the benefits of the reform, which will dismantle Turkey`s 78-year-old penal code, copied in 1926 from that of fascist Italy.
Neither Baykal, nor Gul and Cicek made any direct mention of the adultery clause, but since the CHP is staunchly opposed to the measure, the AKP proposal appeared to have died a quiet death.
Questioned by reporters, Gul replied: "Do not reduce the whole reform bill to just adultery."
Observers had been seeing hints all day that the AKP might take such a step.
Opposition to the clause within the AKP itself was becoming more and more vocal, with Culture and Tourism Minister Erkan Mumcu taking the lead when he said in an interview Monday that the proposal had "no social value."
Speaking earlier before his party caucus, Gul deplored that "a clause that does not even exist" is casting a pall over "an important and radical reform."
"Turkey does not deserve this," Gul said. "Everything is openly discussed in this country... The Assembly will meet and the deputies, who represent the people, will act according to what they believe and what they deem to be right."