Turkish PM pledges to pass TCK without adultery ban

During their meeting, Erdogan said that the government wouldn’t insist on the issue of criminalizing adultery in a new Turkish Penal Code (TCK) bill and complained that he had been misunderstood on the issue. “We’ll pass the TCK bill without including the issue of adultery,” he said. Later, speaking at a joint press conference alongside Verheugen, Erdogan thanked the commissioner for his contributions and added that the Parliament would pass the new TCK bill as soon as possible. For his part, Verheugen reiterated that the new TCK was very important for fulfilling the EU political criteria and that with its passage, no more obstacles would remain to Ankara’s accession talks. Verheugen added that there would be no further conditions stipulated for Ankara’s EU bid.