BRUSSELS, Sept 23 (AFP) - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan confirmed Thursday that a new penal code to be submitted to parliament will not criminalize adultery, a provision that threatened to derail the country's aspirations to join the European Union.
"No item which is not already included will be included, and I mean by that the issue of adultery. We need to adopt all these draft laws all together," Erdogan told reporters after talks with party leaders at the European Parliament in Brussels.
The Turkish parliament is to meet in extraordinary session Sunday to agree a new penal code, as well as other legislation, following EU pressure to pass it if Ankara wants to secure a green light to start EU membership talks.
Erdogan noted that European Enlargement Commissioner Guenter Verheugenen had been satisfied with assurances about what bills will be passed. "We will do that on Sunday after consulting our political groups in the parliament," he said.
The Turkish leader was pressed on whether, even if criminalizing adultery is not in the draft legislation to be agreed now, it could be put back on the political agenda in the future.
"I can't say what others after me will do. For others who come to power after me, that would be their problem. I can only guarantee what I will do during the term of my government," he said.
European Parliament president Josep Borrell said bluntly that the adultery issue had been blown out of proportion by the media.
"All of the fuss made about the criminalization of adultery was just really a story that the press got hold of in the slack season," he said. "There never was, according to the prime minister, any piece of legislation to that effect."
Erdogan was more oblique. "Turkish public opinion and western public opinion have been kept busy with that issue in recent weeks," he said. But he conceded that after the "uproar" in the media the Turkish government had decided to withdraw contentious parts.