Embattled Turkey PM faces tough visit to EU

ANKARA: Turkey´s embattled Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan sought Monday to downplay the risk of a crisis with the European Union as he headed to Brussels facing a row over controversial judical reforms.

European officials have voiced deep concern about the state of democracy in Turkey and the independence of its institutions after the government, facing its worst crisis since coming to power over a decade ago, moved to tighten its control on the judiciary in the wake of a vast corruption probe.

Erdogan insisted 2014 would be a "turning point" in Turkey´s relations with the EU, after the resumption of membership talks late last year following a three-year freeze.

But he told reporters before leaving for Brussels that the government would not back down on the plans to reform top judicial body the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK) and that it would move ahead with a "brave" reform agenda this year.

Nearly 2,000 supporters of the Turkish prime minister gathered in front of the Brussels hotel he is to check to into, waving Turkish flags in a festive display.

New EU Affairs Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that Muslim-majority Turkey, which has sought for decades to join the European club, would be pushing in Brussels for a timeline for negotations to ensure that the process is not "open-ended.

""We hope, we wish and we believe that the process concerning the HSYK will not provoke a serious crisis with the EU," Cavusoglu said, although he conceded that there were "some difficulties" in aspects of the membership talks.

Erdogan´s trip to Brussels -- his first in five years -- has been overshadowed by the graft scandal rocking Erdogan and his government´s subsequent mass purge of police and the judiciary, which critics see as a bid to stifle the investigation.´Opportunity to explain reforms´