ANKARA -  The Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, in its response to the parliamentary question of HDP member Hasan Özgüneş, argued that Kurdish will not be used as an announcement language at airports since the official language is Turkish. Özgüneş said this was an indication of the denial against the Kurdish.

 

Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Şırnak MP Hasan Özgüneş asked a parliamentary question to the Minister of Transport and Infrastructure why Kurdish was not used as a language for the announcements, directions and information at the airports, bus and subway stations. Responding to Özgüneş's parliamentary question, Minister Adil Karaismailoğlu mentioned only the part of the motion related to the airport. In his response, the Minister said: "Because the official language of Turkey is Turkish and the official language of international aviation is English, the flight informations, announcements and advisory services are carried out in Turkish and English."

 

'DENIAL OF THE KURDS'

 

Commenting on the response of the Ministry Özgüneş stated that the government approaches the identity and the language of the Kurds and other minorities with a nationalist manner and said: "From the establishment of Turkey, there are only Turks in Turkey and the language of Turkey is Turkish. Turkey imposes every other people living in Turkey to forget about their identities, languages and culture. This is a denial against the Kurds."

 

'CULTURAL GENOCIDE'

 

Underlining that they are not surprised by the response given to them, Özgüneş said: "They already wrote in their Constitution that no language other than Turkish can be used as the language of education. It is an approach to ban the Kurdish language and to dissolve the existence of the Kurdish people. This situation clearly shows itself in this parliamentary question today. There is more than one official language in Europe. For example, even in Switzerland there are 4 different languages. In any country of Europe, a few families can get together and apply to the state for a school to be opened for their children in line with their culture. In many parts of the world, different languages ​​are considered as wealth and kept alive. The Kurdish language, mother tongue of at least 20 million people is described as 'unknown language', even at the parliament. This is a denial against the Kurdish people. It is a policy aimed at destroying other peoples and dissolving them in a nationalist manner under the name of Turkish identity. It is against human rights and universal law and we condemn it. Destroying a society's language, culture and identity is a white genocide. It is a cultural genocide. It is more dangerous than physical killing. You are destroying a people. "

 

PARLIAMENTARY QUESTION

 

Özgüneş tabled a parliamentary question and said: "Although Kurdish is the second most spoken language in Turkey, announcements are not made in Kurdish in bus stations, subway stations and airports. Why? How do you eliminate the grievences that citizens who do not understand the announcements made at these transportation points on domestic flights?"

 

 

MA / Diren Yurtsever