UPDATE 1-Slovak PM turns up heat on coalition partner

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Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico told his farm minister, a member of a junior coalition party, to quit or be sacked, Fico's spokeswoman said on Thursday, a step that could fell the ruling coalition.

A dissolution of the coalition would strip the government of its parliamentary majority and could lead to its collapse at a crucial time in the European Union member's quest to join the euro currency zone in 2009.

Fico told the minister, Miroslav Jurena of the centre-left Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS), to take political responsibility for disputed land transfers that have rocked relations in the often fractious three-party coalition.

"If Farm Minister Miroslav Jurena does not take this step himself, the prime minister will ask the president on Friday... for his dismissal," Fico's spokeswoman Silvia Glendova said in a statement.

"The prime minister is fully aware of the consequences that his request and the proposed actions can have on the operations and existence of the current government coalition, but must react to the inactivity and inability of the HZDS to take a fundamental position on this land scandal."

Jurena has said he did nothing wrong and the HZDS has backed him. (Reporting by Martin Dokoupil, writing by Jan Lopatka)

Keywords: SLOVAKIA COALITION/

[BRATISLAVA/Reuters/Finance.cz]