Radio Farda - November 9, 2016
 |
| Some members of parliament gathered around Pezeshkian to congratulate him on his election as Deputy Speaker of the Parliament. |
On Sunday, November 9, 100 members of the Iranian Parliament held the first meeting of the "Turkish Regions" faction, during which Masoud Pezeshkian, the Deputy Speaker of Parliament, was elected as the head of the faction, and Nader Qazipour, the representative from Urmia, was elected as the deputy head.
Reza Karimi, the representative from Ardabil, is another deputy head of the faction, while Mohammad Hassan Nezhad, the representative from Marand and Jolfa, and Shahabuddin Bi-Maghadar, the representative from Tabriz, were elected as secretaries. Zahra Saei, the representative from Tabriz, was chosen as the faction spokesperson.
According to the ISNA news agency, Zahra Saei, the spokesperson for the "Turkish Regions" faction, announced that the faction was established with the presence of "100 representatives," and 25 members of the Parliament are part of its central council.
Ms. Saei described the goals of establishing this faction as including "strategic management to solve the problems of the Turkish regions," utilizing the "potential" of these regions, "balanced development" in the country, and "promoting and strengthening national unity."
According to ILNA news agency, in addition to representatives from the provinces of East Azerbaijan, West Azerbaijan, Ardabil, and Zanjan, several representatives from other provinces of Iran, including Mahmoud Bahmani from Savojbolagh, Elias Hazrati and Behrouz Nemati from Tehran, Ali Akbari from Shiraz, Ahmad Amirabadi Farahani from Qom, and Yonatan Bet-Kelia, the representative of Assyrians, are also members of this faction.
The election of Nader Qazipour as the deputy head of the faction comes after the "assault and battery" incident involving Ehsan Badaghi, a reporter for the Iran newspaper, by Qazipour in September, following a question about the formation of the "Turkish Regions" faction.
This faction has been formed at a time when, in recent years, demands from ethnic minorities in Iran have been increasingly raised through official media and forums.
During his presidential election campaign, Hassan Rouhani issued a 10-point statement emphasizing the importance of respecting the rights of ethnic groups, religions, and minorities in Iran, making promises in this regard, including the official teaching of the mother tongues of ethnic groups in schools and universities.
Hossein Tavakoli, the senior advisor to the National Organization for Educational Testing, announced on Saturday, August 13, that it would be possible for students entering in 2016 to choose Kurdish and Turkish language and literature courses.
One of the actions taken by the 11th government to fulfill Rouhani's promises concerning the rights of ethnic minorities as stipulated in the Iranian Constitution was the allocation of part of the Persian literature curriculum for grades 1 to 3 of secondary school to include Kurdish content.
The link to the original article in Farsi on Radio Farda:
انتخاب مسعود پزشکیان به عنوان رئیس فراکسیون «مناطق ترکنشین» مجلس