Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan confirmed the move in a press conference held on Wednesday before his departure to Pakistan for the D-8 summit. Erdoğan said the new legislation was a part of commitments that his party announced during the last Justice and Development Party (AK Party) congress on Sept. 30. “We introduced these [reforms] during our congress and they are all included in our 63-point package,” said the prime minister.
In response to a question on possible new steps toward providing public services in several languages, Erdoğan said the government was “already taking unprecedented steps,” a statement that reiterated Atalay's announcement that the legal process for instituting the change had already begun. “The use of the mother tongues of citizens to receive public services is on the agenda, not in the government sector,” said Atalay, adding that people already receive public services in their native languages in practice in the region. “For example, if a woman applies for social aid in Şırnak or some other place, there is already a translator there to help her if she cannot speak Turkish,” Atalay said. He added that a number of governor's offices in the region have already established help lines for those whose native language is not Turkish. However, the minister said, “this legislation will provide the legal basis for this [de facto situation].”
In a similar move, the government sent a new proposal to the parliamentary sub-commission seeking to remove a ban on defending oneself in court in a language other than Turkish, as Ahmet İyimaya, the head of Parliament's Justice Commission, confirmed on Tuesday. Deputy Prime Minister Arınç had reiterated on Nov. 5 the existence of the proposal on the party platform released at its fourth general congress in September.