Turkish foreign minister Abdullah Gul has pledged to change the country’s notorious Article 301 “in a few weeks time”.

“This article 301 overshadows Turkey’s reform progress. Both myself and Prime Minister Erdogan believe that we have to change this article,” Mr Gul said referring to Turkey’s penal code article which punishes “denigrating Turkishness” and which has led to charges against journalists and writers like Nobel prize winner Orhan Pamuk.

The EU has repeatedly urged Ankara to either revise or scrap the article in order to ensure freedom of expression in the country, but Mr Gul has indicated that the trials against writers in the country also reflect a mentality within the ranks of Turkish prosecutors. He has expressed a desire to see this mentality change, but also pointed out that “this cannot happen over night; it’s a process.”

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