Freedom of expression to top ministerial meeting's ag

Amid international criticism and calls for Ankara to do more to improve freedom of expression, a committee of ministers in charge of overseeing Turkey's reform process will today address the problem and discuss the shortcomings and any possible remedies.

The Reform Monitoring Group, bringing together Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül, Interior Minister Abdülkadir Aksu and Justice Minister Cemil Çiçek as well as State Minister Ali Babacan -- Turkey's chief negotiator for accession talks with the European Union -- will meet today for a meeting reviewing the implementation of EU membership reforms.

The issue of the freedom of expression will dominate the agenda of the meeting, officials said.

EU aspirant Turkey has carried out sweeping economic and political reforms to bring its laws into line with standards of the 25-nation bloc in the past few years. Acknowledging the progress, EU ministers formally launched accession talks with Turkey on Oct. 3, but criticism in a number of areas, most notably freedom of expression, remained after the start of talks.

In an overall assessment of Turkey's steps to catch up with EU membership standards, the EU Commission said in its regular progress report, published earlier this month, that Turkey should do more to improve the freedom of expression, complaining in particular that people still face sentences for expression of non-violent opinion.

Turkey has come under international criticism over its record of freedom of expression, particularly after a prosecutor brought charges against novelist Orhan Pamuk in August for his remarks on the deaths of Armenians and Kurds in Anatolia in February under Article 301 of the new Turkish Penal Code (TCK).

In October, Hrant Dink, the editor of the bilingual Armenian/Turkish weekly newspaper, Agos, was convicted under Article 301 and given a suspended six-month prison sentence in relation to an article he had written on the Armenian diaspora.

The EU says Article 301, and other articles, constitute a potential threat to freedom of expression because of they can be used to restrict such freedom.

The case against Pamuk drew criticism from the United States as well. Members of a U.S. government human rights group, the U.S. Helsinki Commission, sent a letter to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan criticizing the prosecution and calling for the removal of charges against the novelist.

In addition to the freedom of expression the EU also expects improvement in the areas of women's rights, the situation in southeastern Anatolia, civil-military relations and trade union rights.

The government vowed to press ahead with reforms after publication of the EU report.

Chief negotiator Babacan has recently joined the Reform Monitoring Group, which regularly meets to assess reform processes and reform implementation.