Turkish state television cut off live broadcasting yesterday when the head of the largest pro-Kurdish party began addressing his parliamentary deputies in the Kurdish language.
The incident highlighted tensions in the European Union candidate over the issue of using the once-banned language in public despite recent government moves to ease restrictions, including launching a Kurdish state channel.
It also took place before March 29th municipal elections in which the ruling AK Party is locked in a close battle with the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) in Diyarbakir, the largest city in the Kurdish southeast region.
"In order to show that there is nothing to fear in using other languages and to emphasise brotherhood of languages during the International Day of Mother Tongues, let me continue my speech in Kurdish," DTP leader Ahmet Turk told a gathering of DTP members before he went off the air.
Under Turkish law, it is illegal for Turkish politicians to make political speeches in a language other than Turkish, although the new state Kurdish channel translated and aired a speech made by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan at an election rally in Diyarbakir on Saturday.
"The constitution and the law on political parties bans the use of any language other than Turkish in parliament and in group meetings. Therefore we had to cut the live broadcast and we apologise for this," TRT said in a statement.
Nihat Ergun, deputy chairman of the AK Party's parliament group, called Turk's speech a "provocation". Parliament Speaker Koksal Toptan said Turk was wrong for addressing parliament in Kurdish but that he not will face penalties for defying the law.
Turkey launched a Kurdish state channel in January following pressure from the EU to expand rights of minority Kurds.
DTP officials have said the channel is a ploy by the AK Party to win votes for municipal vote and have pointed out the many restrictions that still exist on Kurdish.
Mr Erdogan has worked hard to win the support of Turkey's 12 million minority Kurds ahead of the polls. He told a crowd in Diyarkabir that all Turkish citizens were equal, but TRT's decision to pull the plug on Turk could damage the AK party's message of inclusion for long-discriminated Kurds.
Kurdish was banned following a 1980 military coup until 1991, as the Turkish state fought a war against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) guerrilla group.
The DTP, which has 21 members in parliament, faces closure by the Constitutional Court on charges it has links to the PKK.
Reuters