Turkey ready to launch Kurdish-language TV channel

12/06/2008

ANKARA, Turkey -- A bill launching a Kurdish-language television channel took effect on Wednesday (June 11th), part of a government initiative tailored to the Kurdish minority. The measure envisions the restructuring of the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) to remove restrictions on foreign-language broadcasts. It also allows the national public broadcaster to employ foreigners. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan insisted in March that the directors of the TRT should launch a special channel that will air programmes in Kurdish, Farsi and Arabic in the southeastern part of the country bordering Iran and Iraq. In an effort to increase Turkey's chances to join the EU, Turkish public television and radio stations began in 2004 to air 30-minute programmes in Kurdish, lifting a 15-year ban on use of the language in public. (AFP, Hurriyet - 11/06/08)