ANKARA, Sept 24 (AFP) - Turkey on Friday recalled lawmakers for a special Sunday session to adopt a crucial penal code reform essential to the country's cherished bid to become an EU member in the aftermath of a crisis with Brussels, which observers blasted as completely unnecessary.
One day after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan assured European officials in Brussels that the reform package would be urgently adopted, Assembly Speaker Bulent Arinc issued the official call for parliament to convene at 11:00 a.m. (0800 GMT) Sunday.
The bill, which aims to overhaul the country's 78-year-old, fascist-inspired penal code, was at the centre of week-long turmoil between Ankara and Brussels that threatened to derail the country's bid for EU membership.
Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) unexpectedly withdrew the package in mid-debate last week, apparently under pressure from radical Islamist AKP lawmakers, to make adultery a punishable crime, a measure that drew criticism both at home and in Europe.
The European Commission immediately warned that Turkey could not expect to launch membership talks with the 25-member bloc without adopting the bill; an angry Erdogan riposted by telling the EU not to meddle in his country's internal affairs.
The spiralling crisis ended Thursday in Brussels when Erdogan, in a major about-face, announced after talks with EU Enlargement Commissioner Guenter Verheugen that the bill would be enacted with no mention of adultery.
Verheugen gave a huge boost to Ankara's EU hopes by saying he saw no further obstacles to a "clear recommendation" for the start of entry talks in a report the commission will issue on October 6.
The report will for the basis of a December 17 decision by EU leaders on whether to begin membership talks with Turkey, a vast and relatively poor country that has been an official EU candidate since 1999.
The resolution of the crisis led to relief in Turkey, reflected in many newspaperes headlines -- although often with a grain of salt.
"Great result," headlined the popular daily Vatan. "Erdogan solves crisis he started himself."
Many commentators, as well as the opposition, were Friday calculating the cost of the crisis and criticized the government for failing to avert it in the first place.
"Erdogan is an expert manufacturer of crises. He first ruins things and then repairs them," Haluk Koc, a deputy-chairman of the opposition Republican People's Party's parliamentary group, told a press conference.
"Turkey is preparing for December 17 with a huge credibility loss it did not deserve."
The liberal daily Milliyet saw losses both at home and in Europe.
"Although we are now back to the pre-crisis period in EU ties, Turkey's credibility has been damaged. It will not be easy to erase the marks this has left on political circles and public opinion in Europe," a foreign affairs columnist said.
"The AKP will also lose support at home. It will have difficulty erasing doubts (over the party's orientation), especially in liberal circles," he added.
The mass-circulation Hurriyet described the turmoil as the latest in a series of "irrational" crises common in Turkish politics, saying it is time for the AKP to change its "egocentric decision-making mechanism and focus on the country's interests instead."
It warned that Turkey still has a long way to go to full EU membership, even if it gets the green light in December to begin accession talks, and warned that the government will have trouble making any headway if it continues to clash with Europe.