TURKEY - Oct 3 - President Of Turkey Defends Rights Record.

Abdullah Gul, the president of Turkey, defends his country's human rights record in a major European forum but says much remained to be done, including action on a law that has been used to restrict free speech. The EU, which Ankara hopes to join, has urged Turkey to scrap the law, Article 301 of the country's penal code, which makes it a crime to insult Turkish national identity or state institutions. "Nobody is in prison in Turkey today for expressing their ideas", Gul said before the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. "But there are many more things still to do". Gul later told reporters he wanted to see Article 301 amended, noting that it had caused much damage to Turkey's image as it negotiates for membership in the EU. Nationalist prosecutors in Turkey have used Article 301 against dozens of writers, journalists and scholars, including Orhan Pamuk, who received the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature, although cases rarely end in convictions. "Even though nobody has been jailed under this article, I would like to see it changed", Gul said. "Parliament is now open and I predict some regulations could be made in connection with this issue". In Turkey, the government, not the president, makes policy, but Gul retains influence in the governing AK party, which he served as foreign minister until Parliament elected him head of state in August. So far, PM Tayyip Erdogan's government has resisted EU pressure to scrap or amend Article 301, saying it will proceed with changes at its own pace. Human rights campaigners say the law seriously discourages freedom of expression and feeds a climate of intolerance exploited by ultranationalists. One of the few writers to have been convicted under the article was the Turkish Armenian editor Hrant Dink. Because of his views on the Ottoman Turkish massacres of Armenians in 1915, Dink was fatally shot in January in Istanbul by a young ultranationalist. Responding to questions from members of the European Parliament, Gul defended Turkey's treatment of its large Kurdish ethnic minority, saying Kurds had achieved more freedoms in the past few years. "We see cultural differences as an asset", he said, "but they cannot justify separation". Gul was apparently referring to Kurdish rebels fighting Ankara's rule in a conflict that has cost more than 30,000 lives since 1984. Gul said a new constitution being prepared by the government would further bolster individual rights and freedoms in Turkey.