The Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) of Turkey is planning to extend the period of time private television and radio stations are allowed to broadcast in Kurdish. Private TV stations currently have the right to broadcast programmes in Kurdish for a maximum of four hours a week, and radio stations for a maximum of five hours a week. Private TV and radio stations which broadcast in Kurdish include Gün TV, Söz TV and Medya FM.
The RTÜK’s decision to extend the broadcasting time allowed to private TV and radio stations for Kurdish programming came only days after the launch of the country’s first 24-hour television channel broadcasting in Kurdish. The public use of Kurdish was prohibited following the 1980 military coup until 1991.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan praised the new Kurdish channel, terming it “a very important initiative to strengthen ties between the public and the state.”
“It is a great flaw that Turkey was so late in launching a channel that would fully broadcast in Kurdish. We have a broad understanding of democracy. Everybody has the right to express themselves within democracy. The new Kurdish channel is a very good example of this fact,” he said.
Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli was, however, critical of the new channel. He said the existence of the Kurdish channel could not be regarded as a development independent of the strategy of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to become a political body and Turkey’s efforts to become a full member of the European Union since 2002.
(Source: Today’s Zaman)
