Pioneer Albanian Class Starts in Turkish School

Turkish and Albanian Education Ministers on Wednesday attended a first Albanian class in the village of Halil Beyli at the Alija Izetbegovic Middle School near Izmir, where a significant portion of the residents have Balkan origins.

"Turkey and Albania are countries which have strong historical, cultural bonds. The bridges between our nations' past and future can only be built by education.

"Our cultures, languages and histories can be transferred to future generations by only a good education," Turkish Minister Ismet Yılmaz said during the class, and called out to the Albanian Minister, Lindita Nikolla:

"You are not only a guest minister from a brother country, to us you are at your home."

Turkey accepted Albanian and Bosnian languages as selective courses in schools in 2016 as part of a government project named "living languages and accents in Turkey", and announced that classes would start in them in 2018.

Albanian Minister Nikolla spoke to the school pupils in Albanian, and described Turkey as her second home.

"I feel that I am in my home country and I thank the Turkish government for offering Albanian language in schools and offering education to more than a thousand Albanian students with scholarships in Turkey.

"We have a common history and culture and very strong bonds between the two nations," she continued.

Izmir province was selected as a pilot area by the Turkish Education Ministry for Albanian and Bosnian language classes because of its significant number of citizens who originated from Balkan countries.

"We started this language project and the project met a great interest. Our citizens with Albanian origins and Turks are as close as two coats of paint. Our citizens who have Balkan origins and...

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