MANY LANGUAGES ARE SPOKEN IN TURKEY

Attending the programme named "Artı" in NTV, Minister for EU Affairs and Chief Negotiator Egemen Bagis answered the questions of Banu Güven concerning the agenda.

After the question about two languages, Bagis said that there were many languages in Turkey but there was one official language, changing this language was not on their agenda.

Egemen Bagis continued as follows:

"There are not only two languages, but there are many languages in Turkey; people can speak any language they want such as Circassian or Lazuri, everybody minds their own business, but this country has only one official language. It is an official language determining with the Constitution. As other countries, changing official language is not on our agenda."

Bagis stated that the writing on the signboards in official language was important whether those signboards belonged to non-governmental organizations or municipalities. Indicating that if the signboard belonged to a state institution, a constitutional infrastructure and a law was necessary not to write in official language, Bagis said, "If such an action is made before adopting the law means to violate this law, it is not a rational."

Answering a question about changing the names of the villages, Bagis said, "In some places they want to rename the village as it is used in Kurdish, we lean towards it. It is the name of that village. It is written with Turkish letters but its Kurdish name can be used, though I don't believe that my Kurdish brothers don't have expectations about autonomy, they have more realistic expectations such as hospitals, schools and airports."

Upon a question about his reaction to protests with eggs towards him, Bagis stated that he was exposed to political protests before and said, "But throwing eggs to someone is not a democratic right, it is an attack. Whether this attack is aimed to a politician in the opposition or to an administrator, the reaction should be the same.

Expressing that there is a false impression about him "pressing a charge because his jacket was stained", Bagis said that he didn't press a charge, he just filed a complaint when police asked because there was a wrongful act.

When asked whether he thinks about withdrawing his complaint or not, Bagis said, "I definitely do. I have only one expectation. That young brother should say "I made a mistake", he shouldn't be an example to anyone else."

After another question about the events in Apoel-Karsiyaka basketball game in Greek Cyprus, Bagis expressed his impressions and said that he was informed of the event via the phone call from Prime Minister Erdogan, then he contacted with Faruk Ozak, State Minister in Charge of Sports and they started a telephone traffic with diplomacy community while Foreign Affairs Minister Davutoglu made a move to put UN into action.

Stating that Greek Cypriot Administration didn't take necessary precautions even though they knew that there was a possibility for a team from Turkey to be exposed to such an event, Bagis said that after the events he talked to Foreign Affairs Minister of Greece and Stephan Füle, European Commissioner for Enlargement.

Bagis mentioned that he also sent a letter to Androulla Vassiliou, the European Commissioner responsible for sport and said that criticism on such an imprudence in an EU member state should come from the EU.

Source: AA