Turkish Parliament to convene Sunday

The machinery would be put in motion Friday to recall parliament and to complete the debate over changes to more than 300 separate article of the penal code, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said after meeting with senior European Union officials in Brussels.
“We will submit the application to the speaker’s office of the parliament regarding the convening of the parliament for an extraordinary session,” Erdogan said.
Discussion on the amendments stalled last week after controversy arose over a proposal by the government to include an article in the new penal code making adultery a criminal offence. The plan drew fire from the EU, which said that such a move would not be in keeping with the bloc’s membership requirements or legislative standards.
The EU’s commissioner responsible for the bloc’s enlargement process, Guenter Verheugen, had said that failure to pass the penal code reforms would have been disaster, especially ahead of the release of the EU’s report on Turkey’s progress in implementing measures to bring the country’s laws and regulations into line with those of the Union.