In his weekly address to the Justice and Development faction in the Turkish parliament, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said the government will introduce Kurdish language elective courses in the country’s public schools come September.

“Kurdish will be learned and taught as an elective lesson if there are a sufficient number of students demanding it. This is a historic step,” said Erdoğan. 

Critics remain unconvinced that the move goes far enough.

According to the BDP (Peace and Democracy Party) which continues to press the addition of Kurdish as an official language in the country, the step falls short.

“There is nothing as despotic as teaching a mother tongue as an elective course,” Gültan Kışanak, co-chairperson of the BDP, said in her group meeting yesterday.

Pinar Dalkus, a 26-year-old lawyer with the independent Human Rights Association in the south-eastern city of Diyarbakir, said introducing elective Kurdish lessons would not meet their needs. 

"We all had problems in school and I don't think elective lessons can solve it," Dalkus said by telephone. "We think education in Kurdish would be more useful."