by Sinan Fisek
ANKARA, Sept 14 (AFP) - Facing a popular outcry at home and stern warnings from Europe, the Turkish government discreetly stepped back Tuesday from a plan to introduce a motion into a crucial penal reform bill to make adultery a crime punishable by prison.
The announcement came in a roundabout way, by implication, and from an unexpected source.
After a surprise 20-minute meeting, opposition leader Deniz Baykal, flanked by two top government ministers, told expectant reporters: "No motion that does not bear the signatures of both parties will be submitted to the assembly."
Baykal's social-democratic Republican People's Party (CHP) had always opposed the adultery clause.
Although none of the men even mentioned adultery, it meant the plan by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) had died a quiet death.
"I am very pleased with this turn of events," Baykal said, stressing that the bill to do away with Turkey's 78-year-old criminal code, adapted in 1926 from that of fascist Italy, was the result of more than a year's work, often at bipartisan level.
Flanking Baykal along with the AKP Justice Minister Cemil Cicek, Foreign Minister and Deputy Premier Abdullah Gul told insistent journalists: "Do not reduce the whole reform bill to just adultery."
Gul is acting for Erdogan, who is on an official visit to Tajikistan.
As the furore mounted over the adultery clause, it tended to push into the background the many aspects of the bill viewed as positive.
The bill, among other things, brings heavier penalties to the crimes of torture and child molestation; unless explicitly ordered by a judge or a prosecutor, it forbids downgrading virginity tests, often conducted at will on women suspects; it bans child pornography, child abuse, the trade in human organs, environmental pollution and computer piracy.
The AKP -- which has its roots in Islamist movements but describes itself as simply "conservative" -- and Erdogan had defended the adultery clause as part of efforts to "protect the unity of the family."
But leaders of the European Union, of which Turkey hopes to become a part, had joined a growingly vocal Turkish opposition to denounce the plan, with Britain, Spain, Germany and the EU Commission openly warning that it would damage Turkey's EU bid.
Observers Tuesday saw early signals that the government was likely to backpedal.
The minister of culture and tourism, Erkan Mumcu, 41, was the first cabinet member to openly oppose the measure, saying Monday that criminalizing adultery has "no social value."
Ruling party deputies interviewed on the parliamentary television channel before an AKP caucus Tuesday morning were unanimous in deploring that the single issue had overshadowed all the other work done on the bill.
Many said the clause had not yet been submitted, and some said they hoped it never would.
Gul deplored before his party caucus 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."
Debate on the bill is expected to last at least a week, "perhaps even two," Gulm told his party caucus.
As he spoke, about 500 demonstrators -- mostly women, but also members of human and gay rights groups -- marched on parliament, waving banners and chanting slogans against the plan to make adultery a jailable offense.
The march was peaceful apart from some minor scuffles, and CHP deputies emerged from the sprawling parliamentary complex to greet the demonstators and usher them into the House to listen to the debate.
The controversy came as Ankara, an EU candidate since 1999, awaits a crucial October 6 report by the EU Commission that will recommend whether to launch membership talks.
The report will serve as a basis for a final decision on December 17 by European leaders on whether and when to set a date for the start of negotiations.