BRUSSELS (AFP) - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will meet with European Union officials in Brussels on Thursday amid tensions with the bloc over his government`s plan to make adultery a crime.
Erdogan is to meet with the president of the European Parliament Josep Borrell. The two men are then scheduled to hold a joint press conference.
A spokesman at the European Commission stressed that Erdogan`s visit had been planned before the row between Ankara and the European Union broke out last week over the adultery measure. He said the Turkish premier "at this point" was not scheduled to meet with EU enlargement commissioner Gunter Verheugen, as reported by the Turkish press on Sunday.
Several Turkish dailies said Erdogan would meet with Verheugen to stress that the row over the penal code reform should not affect Turkey-EU relations.
Erdogan will stress that the adultery clause will have an extremely narrow field of application and neither meddle with "civilized relationships between adults", nor curb individual freedoms, the newspapers said.
The clause will simply threaten to punish "sexual infidelity of a nature to seriously damage the social standing of a spouse and/or children who are deceived in a continuous manner," the liberal Milliyet reported.
Adultery is a subject that comes up rarely in Turkish court proceedings: legal statistics for 2003 show that in nearly 70,000 divorce cases that were concluded in Turkey, only 64 cited adultery as a cause.
When Erdogan`s Justice and Development Party (AKP) unexpectedly pulled the bill off the parliament floor last Thursday -- apparently to reintroduce the adultery clause it had earlier agreed to drop -- Verheugen warned that it would reflect badly in the October 6 report he is penning on Turkey`s progress in meeting the criteria for entry to the European Union.
Erdogan riposted by telling the EU not to meddle in Turkey`s domestic affairs.
The much-awaited report will serve as a basis for a December 17 decision by EU leaders on whether or not to give Turkey, an official EU candidate since 1996, a starting date for membership talks.
The press reports also said Erdogan would seek more understanding from the EU on its domestic religious sensitivities, citing the tolerance shown to Ireland and its abortion ban during that country`s integration process into the EU.
Erdogan will also say that a guarantee to Turkey that it will be given a starting date for talks could allow the government to enact the penal code -- otherwise widely admired for its articles enhancing individual freedoms -- without the adultery clause.
The EU insists that Turkey must enact the bill if it wants a more favorable report on October 6, but the draft remains in limbo after the Turkish parliament on Saturday went into recess until October 1, its official opening date.
The first 10 days of a new session are taken up by procedural matters, such as elections of the speaker and committee members, which means the bill cannot be enacted in time for the report -- unless parliament reconvenes in emergency session before then.