First of all Kurdish must be an official language in Southeast Turkey!

Following the self-assured announcement of the Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül on Wednesday in Luxembourg that Turkish "will in future be an official language”* the President of the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV), Tilman Zülch, demanded of the Turkish government that first Kurdish must be granted the status of official language in their own country:

"Kurdish, spoken by 15 million people, by 80 percent of the population in one quarter of the Turkish territory, is to the present day no official language in Turkey. Kurdish enjoys no official status either with the authorities, nor in the school system, nor in the large newspapers of the Kurd region in the southeast of the country. Turkey makes hardly any attempts to resettle the up to two million people who were driven out of 3,428 villages. Ankara should give information to the general public in Europe on the number of Kurds who are still held in custody for political reasons. Various institutions spoke a year ago of up to 3,000 Kurd political prisoners, who were sentenced to long prison sentences allegedly for terrorism, but in reality for distributing leaflets, for taking part in demonstrations or other non-violent campaigns to protect their rights.

In that part of Turkey which is populated predominantly by Kurds their language must be given the status of official language and Ankara’s policies towards the Kurds must finally adopt democratic principles. It is only then that such enthusiastic expectations can be formulated to the democratic body of the EU countries.”

*The "tageszeitung” (taz) quotes Abdullah Gül in their edition of 5th October 2005: "You will be needing your earphones” he said at the beginning of his address. "Turkish will in the future be an official European language.”