18 September 2004	Saturday	02 Shaban 1425

ANKARA, Sept 17: Bickering within Turkey's ruling party on whether adultery is a crime or not brought Ankara and the EU to the brink of crisis on Friday, with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan sharply telling the European body not to meddle in his country's domestic affairs.

Less than three weeks before the EU executive issues a make-or-break report on whether membership talks with Turkey should begin, Mr Erdogan lashed out at criticism from Brussels over a criminal law reform package frozen in parliament because of an internecine party squabble on the legal status of adultery.

"No requests can be made concerning Turkey's internal affairs," a combative Erdogan told reporters at the headquarters here of his Justice and Development Party (AKP). He was responding to remarks from EU Enlargement Commissionner Gunter Verheugen and his spokesman, Jean-Christophe Filori, on a sudden AKP move Thursday night that left the penal code reform package in limbo.

"It's a very... worrying development that we see in Turkey," Verheugen told reporters in Leeuven, Belgium. "That might mean that there will be no adoption before October 6," when the EU Commission report on Turkey is due, of the penal code reform.

Filori said criminalising adultery would "certainly cast doubt on the direction of Turkey's reform efforts and would complicate Turkey's European prospects". "This would send the wrong signal ahead of the report," he warned. "The outcome of this will be fully reflected in the report."

The AKP, which describes itself as simply "conservative" despite its roots in radical Islamist politics, put EU membership at the top of its agenda when it barrelled to power in Turkey two years ago under Mr Erdogan's leadership.

A feisty former mayor of Istanbul who has done jail time for his religious utterances in this overwhelmingly Muslim but staunchly secular country, Mr Erdogan has been uncharacteristically compliant so far in his relationship with the EU and its requests for Turkey to hoist itself to European standards.

"We have achieved and complied with everything concerning the Copenhagen political criteria and the Maastricht economic criteria," he said on Friday. "But let us make one thing clear: We are Turkey, we are Turks.

"We will make our own decisions - parliament will make our decisions." But it was AKP indecisiveness in parliament that sparked the crisis. Sharp reactions from Turkey and the EU - including such strong supporters of Turkey's EU bid as Britain and Spain - led the AKP to drop the adultery clause as debate on the reform package began in Parliament Tuesday.

Parliament was convened in an extraordinary session to push through the reform aimed at overhauling the country's 78-year-old penal code, borrowed from fascist Italy, and bringing it up to European standards. -AFP