Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan accused the European Union on Saturday of trying to influence the country's judiciary over the trial of novelist Orhan Pamuk, charged with insulting Turkish identity.
"The EU is now trying to put pressure on our judiciary. This is wrong. The judiciary is looking at the case and its decision should be awaited," Erdogan said in a statement to reporters.
The Pamuk trial, which has divided Turkey, was adjourned to February 7 shortly after it began on Friday to give the Justice Ministry time to decide how to proceed.
The case has raised concern over freedom of expression in Turkey, which started membership talks with the EU in October.
Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn warned Turkey on Thursday its trial of Pamuk put Ankara itself in the dock over its commitment to European values.
Pamuk, 53, faces a possible three-year jail term if found guilty of "insulting Turkish identity". He said in a Swiss newspaper interview in February that no one dared discuss the massacre of a million Armenians 90 years ago and the deaths of 30,000 Kurds in the past two decades.
Opposition parties and the media criticised the government for its handling of the high-profile trial, at which European Parliament observers were attacked and nationalist demonstrators assaulted a car transporting Pamuk. "The world watched what happened in Istanbul. Protests turning into violence did not look good for Turkey on its way into the EU," the newspaper Vatan said.
"Shame on this country," the mass-circulation newspaper Hurriyet said on its front page.
Erdogan said he had ordered Interior Minister Abdulkadir Aksu to investigate. "If the police have faults, then this should be dealt with. Those who made these protests should not have been given that wide ground ... hitting the cars ... it is a serious mistake to let this happen," Erdogan said, according to state news agency Anatolian.
Discussing the killings of Armenians in World War One is highly sensitive in Turkey. Ankara rejects charges that Ottoman forces committed genocide against Armenians, but under EU pressure has called for historians to debate the issue.
As Pamuk made his remarks while an old penal code was in force, the judge adjourned the trial to await a report from the Justice Ministry on whether the case should continue, under the old or the new penal code, or whether it should be stopped.
Turkey's best known novelist and author of "My Name is Red" and "Snow" is charged under Article 301 of the revised Turkish penal code which came into effect on June 1. The article has been heavily criticised by the EU.
Pamuk is one of dozens of writers and scholars facing charges brought by prosecutors for "insulting Turkish identity". "The government should decide before February 7. Do they want an authoritarian country or an open society?" wrote columnist Ali Bayramoglu in the Yeni Safak daily.