Turkmen President begins language campaign

The Turkmen President, Saparmurat Niyazov, has launched a campaign to promote the Turkmen language among government officials.

He's made knowledge of Turkmen a prerequisite for all leadership posts.

The President has openly objected to the practice of issuing government decrees first in Russian and only later in Turkmen, saying this distorts the vital decisions of state.

His order comes only days after the Foreign Minister , Boris Shikhmyradov was dismissed from his post, with his poor grasp of the Turkmen language cited as one of the reasons.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service