ANKARA, Sept 14 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Turkey's most powerful business group will meet European Union leaders over the coming weeks to urge them to start EU membership negotiations with Ankara, the group's vice chairman said on Saturday, news agencies reported.

"We will explain to European organizations, politicians and prime ministers that Turkey needs to be rewarded for taking courageous steps towards Europe at a time of crisis," Aldo Kaslowski from the Turkish Association of Businessmen and Industrialists (TUSIAD), told Anatolia news agency, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

TUSIAD representatives will meet Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis at the end of September. They will then hold talks with senior politicians in Denmark, the current holder of the rotating EU presidency, Italy, Belgium and France, Kaslowski said.

Turkey has been pushing the 15-nation EU to set a date by the end of the year for the formal start of membership talks.

This follows the adoption by the Turkish parliament in August of human rights reforms that Brussels said were a prerequisite for accession talks.

The reforms include the abolition of the death penalty and greater cultural rights for the country's Kurdish minority. They were passed by the assembly in the wake of a political crisis which led to a decision to hold an early general election on November 3.

Ankara insists the reform package fulfills the EU's criteria and wants the bloc's leader to set a date for negotiations to start at their summit in Copenhagen in December. The EU is due in Copenhagen to draw up a timetable for taking in a string of new members from central and southern Europe over the coming years.

But the EU says Turkey's reforms are not a guarantee of formal accession talks and warns it will closely monitor their implementation.

On August 4, Powerful far-right Turkish leader Devlet Bahceli plans to appeal to the country's top court to block newly adopted reforms considered vital to Ankara's bid to join the European Union, news agencies reported.

Bahceli and his Nationalist Action Party (MHP) are vehemently opposed to two of the reforms - the abolition of the death penalty and legalization of language courses and broadcasts in Kurdish - on the grounds that they would harm Turkey's unity.

"I have asked my colleagues to make preparations to apply to the constitutional court to annul the abolition of the death penalty as well as education and broadcasts in one's mother tongue," Bahceli said, the Anatolia news agency reported Sunday, according to AFP.

The new measures will become law once signed by the President and published in the official gazette, both expected to happen soon.

The United States gave its support for the overwhelmingly Muslim but officially secular nation to join the EU. Turkey already belongs to NATO and is a key strategic ally of both the U.S. and Israel.

The reforms were adopted despite a bitter fight by the MHP - a partner in the three-party coalition and now the largest party in parliament after a mass defection from Ecevit's Democratic Left Party.