Kurdish Leader Calls for the Elimination of Ladenite Ansar Al-Islam.

Turkey Schools Set to Teach Kurdish

AP

Aug 10, 2002

A little more than a decade ago, speaking Kurdish was a crime in Turkey. Today, a handful of schools are preparing to teach the once-taboo tongue under reforms passed as part of Turkey's push to join the European Union.

The reforms, passed by last week by Parliament, are intended to improve the country's much-criticized human rights record and boost Turkey's chances of joining the EU. Teaching Kurdish in private language institutes was one of those reforms. Other reforms include allowing private TV and radio stations to broadcast in regional languages such as Kurdish.

The move was no small step for Turkey, which fought a 15-year war with separatist Kurdish guerillas that killed 37,000 people, mostly Kurds. The government had long said that Kurdish in schools would promote separatism and reward the rebels.

Days after the reforms passed, Nazif Ulgen, an ethnic Kurd businessman, applied for permission for his language institute to teach Kurdish. Ulgen says he sees legalization of the lessons as a way of closing a bitter chapter for Turkey.

``The courses would be a huge step for Turkey,'' Ulgen, 53, said this week. ``Turkey has passed the necessary human rights reforms for the EU... Now it's time to implement them.''

If his petition is approved by the Education Ministry, Ulgen says his institute will become one of the first to legally teach the language in Turkey's modern history - a radical break with the past in a country that until recently rounded up thousands of Kurds for demanding education in their mother tongue.

Turkey has touted the move as pushing the country a step closer to its dream of membership in the EU. Other European countries have welcomed the reforms, but are waiting to see if they are properly implemented.

According to some Turks, however, the reforms are problematic because they do not allow any of the nation's primary schools, high schools or universities to teach Kurdish.

``The measures were positive, necessary, but deficient. Kurds didn't get what they really want- education in their own language,'' said 21-year-old Avni Dal, a Kurd who was expelled from Istanbul University this winter for demanding optional Kurdish-language courses.

Thousands of people have been detained over the past year for submitting petitions demanding that government schools teach Kurdish. Eight of Dal's classmates were jailed for leading the petition campaign. Most of their trials are pending.

Human rights groups say that the change in the law is likely to have little impact on Kurds as long as classes are restricted to expensive, private language institutes.

``If there's no Kurdish education in state schools it means the ban (on Kurdish courses) is still in effect,'' said Dogan Genc, an official at Turkey's independent Human Rights Association.

Genc also warned that although teaching Kurdish is now legal, other laws could still keep Kurds from studying their language.

Turkey lifted a ban on speaking Kurdish in 1991 - a law that also freed up Kurdish-language music on the radio.

But authorities have nonetheless ordered radio stations off the air for broadcasting Kurdish music, saying the stations were part of a rebel campaign to spread the use of Kurdish.

Similar arguments could be used to close Kurdish-language institutes, Genc said.

``It's not enough to change one law. They have to change all the related laws too,'' he said.

About half of Turkey's 12 million Kurds live in the southeast, many of them in villages where most people speak only Kurdish.

Hasan Kaya of the Istanbul-based Kurdish Institute - the only research center in Turkey dedicated to Kurdish studies- is also concerned.

His three-room institute was closed for four months earlier this year for illegally teaching Kurdish courses- an accusation it denies. It is considering starting new courses, but is being cautious.

``After the reforms, we don't know what to do,'' Kaya said. ``There's a wall dividing the state from its people. Two bricks have fallen off the top, but the wall is still there.''