Kyrgyz president promises not to close down schools linked to Turkish opposition activist Gulen
BISHKEK. Dec 1 (Interfax) - Kyrgyzstan is not going to close the Sebat chain of Kyrgyz-Turkish lyceums, which are linked in Turkey to the organization of Turkish preacher and opposition activist Fethullah Gulen.
"I don't know Gulen, I don't know his organization, but it looks absurd to confuse the Sebat schools and the political organization that prepared a coup in Turkey; maybe it's that way in Turkey," president Almazbek Atambayev told a press conference on Thursday.
At the same time, he said he had ordered a revision of the charter of the schools in such a way as to make the education ministry one of the main founders in the system of the Sebat schools. "The Education Ministry will be included in the founders' council of the system of these schools, it will have a blocking package, and although I know it's just schools, but we will rename them, they will be called Sapat, which is the Kyrgyz word for 'quality'," Atambayev said.
"We will not close the schools. We need quality schools, but we will intensify external control over education, over the subjects, just to be on the safe side," the president said.
Speaking about the cooling of the relations between Kyrgyzstan and Turkey, Atambayev said "it happened because I said Turkey was not right to shoot down the Russian plane, and now they have admitted that." "Probably the minister who scared us with those schools or someone instead of him will admit that we were right about that as well," Atambayev said.
"We respect Turkey very much, I love it very much, I once made money there, now I don't have anything there, no matter what tales people tell, I love it very much, and I love Russia, and I very much dislike those who try to set them against each other," Atambayev said.