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ARMENIAN-LANGUAGE ELECTION CAMPAIGNS ALLOWED IN TURKEY
October 21, 2013 - 16:32 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net - A package of reforms suggested by Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan allows conducting electoral campaigns
in Armenian. Before the move, usage of any language beside Turkish
during campaigns was forbidden, according to Haber Turk.
Politicians in Istanbul, Hatai, Diyarbakir and Kars which are home
to descendants of the 1915 Genocide victims can address the voters
in Armenian.
According to the Turkish Linguistic Society's assessment, Turkish
population speaks 36 languages: 15 million speak Kurdish, a million an
a half are Alevites, with Armenian, Arabic. Greek, Abkhazian, Georgian,
Kazakh among the languages spoken. A Western Armenian dialect, Hamshen,
which hasn't changed in the last 200 years, is also spoken.
Armenian news service has been operating at TRT state channel for
more than a year.
On September 30, Erdogan unveiled a long-anticipated package of
reforms designed "to strengthen democracy and keep on track a fragile
settlement process" to end the conflict with the outlawed Kurdistan
Workers' Party (PKK).
The most important reforms include removing restrictions of wearing
Islamic headscraves, possibility of education in mother tongue,
restoration of original names of villages, districts and provinces that
existed before 1980, sweeping changes in law on political parties,
possibility of lowering 10 percent electoral threshold in entering
Parliament, improving assembly freedom and other small rights for
religious and ethnic minorities.
http://www.panarmenian.net/eng/news/171561/
October 21, 2013 - 16:32 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net - A package of reforms suggested by Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan allows conducting electoral campaigns
in Armenian. Before the move, usage of any language beside Turkish
during campaigns was forbidden, according to Haber Turk.
Politicians in Istanbul, Hatai, Diyarbakir and Kars which are home
to descendants of the 1915 Genocide victims can address the voters
in Armenian.
According to the Turkish Linguistic Society's assessment, Turkish
population speaks 36 languages: 15 million speak Kurdish, a million an
a half are Alevites, with Armenian, Arabic. Greek, Abkhazian, Georgian,
Kazakh among the languages spoken. A Western Armenian dialect, Hamshen,
which hasn't changed in the last 200 years, is also spoken.
Armenian news service has been operating at TRT state channel for
more than a year.
On September 30, Erdogan unveiled a long-anticipated package of
reforms designed "to strengthen democracy and keep on track a fragile
settlement process" to end the conflict with the outlawed Kurdistan
Workers' Party (PKK).
The most important reforms include removing restrictions of wearing
Islamic headscraves, possibility of education in mother tongue,
restoration of original names of villages, districts and provinces that
existed before 1980, sweeping changes in law on political parties,
possibility of lowering 10 percent electoral threshold in entering
Parliament, improving assembly freedom and other small rights for
religious and ethnic minorities.
http://www.panarmenian.net/eng/news/171561/