Turkey passes law to allow minority languages on TV

Ankara: Turkey has passed a law easing restrictions on airing programmes in Kurdish and other minority languages after the curbs drew criticism from the EU.

The amendment, passed by parliament late on Thursday, allows state broadcaster TRT to broadcast freely in languages other than Turkish and coincides with an initiative to boost development in the impoverished, mainly Kurdish, southeast.

Any restrictions on Kurdish were "cultural vandalism", state-run Anatolian news agency quoted a deputy from the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party as saying.

"It is the right of Turkey's 20 million Kurdish citizens, who pay taxes, to expect from TRT broadcasts in their own language," he said.