Kurdistan Observer

Kurdish language courses, which were once punishable by lengthy prison terms, could be launched in Turkey within three months after parliament passed a series of ground-breaking reforms, Education Minister Necdet Tekin said Monday.

The reforms adopted Saturday are aimed at bringing Turkey closer to the European Union and also include the abolition of the death penalty in peacetime and the legalization of Kurdish broadcasts for the country's sizeable Kurdish minority.

The legislation now needs to be published in the official gazette and the approval of the president, both largely ceremonial moves, to come into effect.

Tekin told Anatolia news agency that after the legislation formally becomes law, his ministry would prepare the necessary decrees to regulate private Kurdish courses.

"I see this (preparation) period as three months. Maybe they (the decrees) could be released even earlier," he said.

The new laws, which aim to pave the way for the opening of accession talks between Turkey and the EU, marked a radical reversal of rigid state policy which has long denied Kurds cultural rights on the grounds that such freedoms could play into the hands of Kurdish separatists.

The Turkish army has fought armed Kurdish rebels seeking self-rule in the mainly Kurdish southeast since 1984, in a conflict which has claimed about 36,500 lives.

Dozens who have demanded broadcasts and courses in the Kurdish language in the past have ended up in prison for propagating separatism.