MADRID, Sept 24 (AFP) - Turkey's bid to join the EU is an opportunity to prove that East and West can live in harmony, the president of the European Parliament, Spanish Socialist Josep Borrell, said Friday.
"We must above all avoid posing the problem in religious terms," he told Cadena Sur radio during a debate on whether the 25-nation European Union should open negotiations to admit what would be its only Muslim member.
Turkish entry into the EU "is an opportunity to prove to the world that East and West can live together," Borrell said.
Turkey's hopes of starting talks received a huge boost on Thursday, when the EU's Enlargement Commissioner Guenter Verheugen told reporters in Brussels that he saw "no more obstacles" to doing so.
Verheugen, who is to publish a report of Turkey's progress on October 6, said his concerns over a disputed penal reform bill had been allayed in talks with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
EU leaders are to decide on December 17 whether to accept the report.
Erdogan heads the Justice and Development Party (AKP), which stands for Islamic values and which had drafted a bill to make adultery a criminal offence in Turkey.
He confirmed on Thursday that the bill had been dropped from a proposed new penal code to be presented to parliament in Ankara on Sunday.
Opponents of Turkey's EU bid seized on the adultery bill as proof that, although the country has a secular system of government, its culture and religious traditions are incompatible with Western values.
But Borrell argued that "Europe must not see itself as a Christian club," and added that "the greatest challenge it faces is in its relationship with the world of Islam."
There were already 14 million Muslims living in EU states, he noted.