DEVA vows to use “every means possible” for education in the mother tongue

Turkey’s DEVA Party pledged to enable Kurdish people who demand to have education in their mother tongue and to use every government means possible to let them improve their language, a party official said during a press briefing about the party’s education programme.

“We think that Kurdish language should also be used in education and state affairs. If we come to power, we will enable it. A language that is spoken by 30 percent of the society is not accepted, that is not fair,” said Abdurrahim Aksoy, a senior figure from the Deva Party.

A member of six opposition parties which form the Nation Alliance, Deva adopts a separate approach regarding the Kurdish question. The party leader Ali Babacan recently said they could reconsider an amendment to the constitutional article that says “Everyone bound to the Turkish State through the bond of citizenship is a Turk,” before being reprimanded by the Good Party, the nationalistic member of the bloc.

“Education in the mother tongue should continue from primary school to university education,” Aksoy said, adding that teachers needed to be trained first.

“First, we will train teachers, academics. We need to use all state resources to lay that foundation. Now the government says it allowed education in Kurdish language but it fails to assign teachers for the course. This is not honest,” he said.