Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said yesterday his government would speed up political reforms required to join the EU after stalling for months amid opposition from nationalist parties.
Mr Erdogan told his AK Party, facing a closure case in the Constitutional Court for alleged Islamist activities, that Parliament would pass next week an amendment to a law criticised by the EU and human rights groups as limiting free speech.
"Other steps which will bring Turkish democracy forward will follow this on a fast track," he said without elaborating.
Ankara began coveted EU membership negotiations in late 2005, but membership talks have been held back by the continued division of Cyprus, slow progress in EU-mandated reforms and frosty attitudes in EU countries such as France.
The EU has said the free speech reform is a crucial test of the predominantly Muslim but secular country's commitment to political reform.
The government has pledged for more than a year to amend a controversial article used by nationalist-minded prosecutors to take hundreds of intellectuals and journalists, including Nobel Literature Laureate Orhan Pamuk, to court for allegedly "insulting Turkishness".
Under the reform of the article, the President will have to give the green light before prosecutors can press charges and the prison sentence will be cut to two from three years.
"It is out of question that we shall weaken our efforts for our EU goal," Mr Erdogan said.
"The process from now on will once more show our government's determination on the EU road. We will have the opportunity to evaluate the road map for the future," he said.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn will visit Ankara on Friday for talks coming at a difficult time for the AK Party, which won a sweeping re-election last July.
Analysts say the government's new reform pledge is a risky but correct move at a time when the ruling party faces a legal attempt to close it down for alleged anti-secular activities.
Turkey's secular elite, which includes the judiciary, army generals and university rectors, believes the AK Party is trying to undermine the separation of state and religion. Turkey's Constitutional Court agreed last week to hear a case brought by a chief prosecutor to have the AK Party shut down, arguing that it is trying to create an Islamic state.
The prosecutor has also called for 71 AK Party officials, including Mr Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul, to be banned from politics for five years.
The AK Party, which has Islamist roots, denies the charges and is preparing its defence.
The case is expected to take months and the threat of protracted political instability has unsettled financial markets. "Mr Erdogan should not be looking for a way out of the problems in Brussels but in parliament," opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahceli told his party.
The government abandoned plans on Monday to make changes to the Turkish constitution to head off the closure threat after failing to get the backing of the MHP, whose support would be needed to push constitutional changes through Parliament.