Turkey’s Caucasians Urge for TV Broadcast in Mother Tongue

Leaders of the Caucasian Associations Federation (KAFFED), the umbrella organization for 56 Caucasian associations active in Turkey, conveyed their demands for the state TV start broadcast in their mother tongues of Adygey and Abkhaz to president Abdullah Gul on Monday.   

"TRT6, alongside Kurdish, should air TV and radio broadcast also in other spoken mother tongues, to provide Turkey's 6 million citizens of Caucasian background the opportunity to enjoy their mother languages,” Cumhur Bal the general coordinator for KAFFED, told bianet.

Public channel TRT 6 has last week started 12 hours TV broadcast  in the Kurdish (Kirmanji) language. The remaining  12 hours should be fairly shared by other language groups, Circassians urge. 

Turkey’s state-owned broadcasting company TRT had in 2004 started a limited TV broadcast in another channel (TRT3) in the languages of Kurdish (Kirmanji), Circassian, Bosnian and Arabic languages. 

Circassians are dissatisfied with the present situation says Bal criticizing the present Circassian broadcast for its limited duration –30 minutes a week- and timeworn coverage of events from the previousweek. “The Circassians are not interested in these broadcasts as they are not based on their culture and tastes” he told bianet.  

The KAFFED delegation further urged for the opening of departments of Caucasian languages and literature  in İstanbul and Ankara Universities alongside the Kurdish departments, as proposed by the Higher Council for Education (YÖK) chair Prof. Ziya Özcan.

The delegation also discussed direct travel opportunities to Abkhazia, Bal told.

“We are not raising the demands for TV broadcast in Circassian in retaliation to Kurdish or other languages,” the KAFFED official says. “We had requested the meeting with the president as early as October, much earlier than the launching of Kurdish TV broadcast. However, all spoken languages should enjoy similar opportunities."(EK)