BRUSSELS (AFP) - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is to meet EU enlargement chief Guenter Verheugen this week, officials said as Ankara seeks to defuse a spat with Brussels ahead of a crunch EU report.
Thursday's meeting, added onto an already-scheduled trip to meet members of the European Parliament, will come less than two weeks before Verheugen publishes his assessment of Turkey's EU preparations on October 6.
"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," said spokesman Jean-Christophe Filori.
"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 in December whether or not to open EU membership negotiations with Turkey - a prospect which deeply divides Europeans.
Political temperatures have risen sharply in recent weeks over Ankara's EU hopes, with critics warning that admitting the huge mostly Muslim country will be simply too much for the already-strained bloc.
Verheugen's spokesman bluntly warned Ankara on Monday that it cannot open accession talks without the adoption of the new penal code.
"The (European) commission will make clear that, as long as such a central element as the reform of the penal code is not adopted, accession negotiations cannot start," he said in a statement.
The statement backtracked from an earlier remark given by Filori at a press briefing that Brussels would "make clear that negotiations cannot start if the new penal code is not adopted by October 6".
According to Turkish media reports, Erdogan will try to convince the EU enlargement chief that the adultery clause he wants would have a narrow field of application and not curb individual freedoms.
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 main opposition 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.
CHP leader Deniz Baykal warned that the row was strengthening the hand of many in the EU who oppose Turkey ever joining the bloc.
"We want to open a window of opportunity for Turkey. Turkey should not destroy its advantages with its own hands," Baykal told reporters.
Erdogan, whose party emerged from a now-banned Islamist movement but describes itself as simply conservative, is at the center of the controversy.
Many of his opponents believe Erdogan still harbors a secret Islamist agenda even, although he has publicly disowned his political roots.
During Erdogan's Brussels trip he 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 at that time.