Brussels, 26/11/2004 (Agence Europe) - The President of the European Parliament, Josep Borrell, will be visiting Turkey on 3 December, where he will be meeting the President of the Turkish parliament, Bulent Aring, Turkey prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer and the Turkish foreign minister Abdullah Gul.
Following a visit by members of the EP's Socialist group headed by Martin Schulz, a delegation of the GUE/NGL group was also visiting Turkey this week, headed by Luisa Morgantini, President of the European Parliament's Development Committee. In a press release, the Italian MEP said that it was a strange period since until only a short time ago, left groups were calling for greater solidarity with the Kurds and calling for Turkey not to be allowed to join the EU, whereas now it is centre-right politicians who did not seem to view human rights as a priority in the past, who oppose Turkey's accession.
The EP's Women's Rights Committee, chaired by Anna Zaborska (EPP-ED, Slovakia), will be sending a fact-finding mission to Turkey in January 2005 and will be holding a public hearing on the same topic in March 2005. As part of the process of preparing a report on the role of women in Turkey being drafted by Emine Bozkurt (PES, the Netherlands), the Women's Rights Committee met with the Turkish ambassador to the EU, Oguz Demiralp. According to an EP report, the Turkish ambassador stressed the importance of women in civil society, as the 150 NGOs operating in Turkey in the field of women's rights could testify. He urged the MEPs to work directly with the NGOs in question. The ambassador admitted that the weak point was Turkish women's involvement in political life (only 5% of Turkish MEPs are women) and supported the idea of quotas for electoral lists provided it was possible to 'convince the political parties'. He also recognised that 'crimes of honour are unacceptable and this is why the criminal code has been amended'. On the criminalisation of adultery, he said that the disputed article had not been included in the criminal code.