MADRID, Sept 26 (AFP) - Denying the Turks accession to the European Union would be "an injustice" since Turkey, as a key member of NATO, has helped ensure European security for the past 50 years, Bulgarian Prime Minister Simeon Saxe-Coburg said in interview published Sunday.
Speaking three days before the start of his official two-day visit to Spain, the Bulgarian leader told the Spanish daily El Pais: "To reject them would be an injustice. The issue is whether they meet the accession criteria."
"For 50 years, Turkey has been one of the most importants players in NATO. Turkey has a role to play in Europe. It's our neighbor. How can we tell them: You have been Europeans when you could defend us and now, no ? It's unacceptable," he added.
Bulgaria, who recently joined NATO, is itself a candidate for EU membership.
Saxe-Coburg, a former monarch who lived in exile in Spain for 55 years before returning to his country after the fall of communism, also stressed that Bulgaria "had been part of this (Ottoman ) empire (now Turkey) for five centuries."
"It's a very big neighbor with a phenomenal economic potential," he added.
The Turkish parliament convened Sunday for an emergency debate on a penal code reform set as a key condition by the European Union for possible accession talks with the Muslim country.
The lawmakers were recalled from summer recess after the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed to drop a controversial plan to criminalize adultery, ending two weeks of tension with Brussels.
Following fence-mending talks with EU Enlargement Commissioner Guenter Verheugen in Brussels on Thursday, Erdogan said that the plans to criminalize adultery had been abandoned and appealed for a special parliamentary session to finish work on the penal code reform.
Verheugen, for his part, said Erdogan's assurances left "no more obstacles on the table" ahead of the release of the October 6 progress report on Turkey, which will form the basis for a December 17 decision by EU leaders on whether to begin membership talks with Ankara.