“The Sur Municipality in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır announced that it will pay an extra 25 liras per month to its employees who speak Kurdish, Armenian or Syriac,” Today’s Zaman newspaper reports referring to Cihan news agency.

“The municipality said it made this decision as part of its “multilingual local governing” efforts. Sur Mayor Abdullah Demirbas said they aim to encourage their personnel to learn more languages to serve residents better. He said people from various cultures and ethnic groups live in Sur and that municipal workers should learn more languages in order to eliminate obstacles to communication,” the daily reads.