BRUSSELS (AFP) - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is to meet EU Enlargement Commissioner Guenter Verheugen during a trip to Brussels this week, a spokesman for the EU official revealed.
The meeting -- which comes ahead of a crucial report on Turkey's EU entry bid to be published on October 6 -- will take place on Thursday, when Erdogan is due in Brussels to meet with members of the European Parliament.
"We are happy to confirm this meeting which will be useful to strengthen dialogue with Turkey and to ask about how the reform process is going in Turkey," spokesman Jean-Christophe Filori said Tuesday.
The meeting is scheduled for 11 a.m. (0900 GMT), he said. During the trip Erdogan is also to meet European Parliament chief Josep Borrell, as well as leaders of the EU assembly's main political parties.
Turkish media reported on Sunday that Erdogan would meet Verheugen during the Brussels visit, but the Commission denied the reports.
"We are talking," said the spokesman, clearly keen to avoid tension with Ankara after the Commission issued a sharp warning Monday about the need for Turkey to push through reform of its penal code.
EU leaders are due to decide at a summit on December 17 whether or not to open EU membership negotiations with Turkey.
In Ankara on Tuesday Turkey's main opposition party put pressure on the government to end a spat with the EU, moving to convene parliament in an extraordinary session to enact the penal code reform.
The center-left Republican People's Party (CHP) would seek a special session next Tuesday to adopt the bill, which the government abandoned last week amid a row with the EU on whether adultery should be reinstated as a criminal offence.