Sunday, March 22, 2009

Turkey's State Radio to Begin Armenian-language Broadcast

HÜRRIYET: Turkey's state radio will launch an Armenian-language channel, reports said on Friday in the latest in a series of planned foreign language broadcasting mediums being launched by the state.

The move comes as Ankara and Yerevan have been engaged in a normalization process between the neighboring countries that for decades have had no diplomatic relations.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan also said Wednesday that state-run Turkish Radio and Television Corp (TRT) would launch a radio station broadcasting in Kurdish.

The radio channels broadcasting in Armenian and Kurdish will go on air in "two to three months", Reuters and CNNTurk reported citing Anatolian Agency.

"At this stage, we will refrain from any comments," an Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesman told Reuters when asked about the report of the planned radio station on Friday.

TRT also plans to launch a Persian TV channel and a news channel broadcasting in English next year, Friday's reports added.

Turkey recently took steps to boost the cultural and democratic rights of Kurds with the Jan. 1 launch of TRT-6, a TV channel that airs in Kurdish 24 hours a day. [Source: Hürriyet] Sunday, March 22, 2009