Parliament met Sunday in an emergency session to take up an urgent package of reforms aimed at boosting the country's chances of starting membership talks with the European Union. The government took the unusual step of calling parliament to session on a Sunday to quickly pass the penal code reform package in time for an October 6 EU progress report that will assess if Turkey is ready to start accession negotiations with the bloc. Both the government and opposition parties support the measures. Parliament opened its session Sunday morning but adjourned after a brief debate until 1300 (1000 GMT) to give time to the justice commission to reintroduce the package to parliament, a largely technical procedure. The reform package revamps Turkey's decades-old criminal laws and aims to bring them up to EU standards.
