Minister of Youth and Sports Osman Aşkın Bak answered the criticisms and questions of the members of parliament at the Grand National Assembly of Turkey Planning and Budget Commission, where the 2027 budget of his ministry was discussed.
Asked how to deal with the Greek Cypriot embargo that prevents TRNC citizens from doing sports, giving the example of the football training camp planned by the Spanish club Barcelona being canceled as a result of the pressure of the Greek Cypriots, Bak said, "The Greek lobby raised a fuss and prevented Barcelona from coming. We were there too, we said: 'We will bring our 4 big teams, you can play a tournament here with the under-15 teams.' It is not possible to accept this embargo. We also ensured that the TRNC Table Tennis Federation became a member of the Balkan Table Tennis Association. He joined an Olympic team for the first time. Because this embargo is being broken in places. "We are working for this." he said.
Minister Bak also answered questions about student capacity in KYK dormitories, meals, training and disaster precautions. Stating that they increased the capacity of KYK dormitories to 1 million, Bak said, "We stated that we increased the capacity of KYK dormitories to 1 million. There is no such system in the world. If you want, send your child to England, will you be able to educate in this way? No state has such an approach. If you do not have money, you cannot study there. The opportunities we provide here are not available in any system in the world. Is it sufficient? If there are deficiencies, we are trying to eliminate them." he said.
Explaining that they are trying to renovate the old KYK dormitories, Bak said that the renovation investments are continuing "step by step".
Osman Aşkın Bak noted the following:
"We also have dormitories that are currently under construction and will be completed within this year. This number will be completed with the construction and rental of 29 dormitories by the end of 2026. We have not received 5 of them yet. Their construction is ongoing, they are about to be completed and we will accept students in January. This number increases to 31 thousand. Look, we have 21 dormitories under construction, and they will have a capacity of 25 thousand. We will prepare this next year. There are approximately 32 dormitories planned at the tender stage. "We will add these to the 34 thousand capacity."
Bak stated that KYK investments continue because they do not want any of the students to be left out, and said:
"We placed 96 percent of the applications. We manage a really big system, it is not easy. Are there any shortcomings? Maybe. At the checkpoint, we put cameras in their kitchens, we follow them as security, we involve our students in this work. There are gyms in our dormitories. There are theater workshops. We organize awareness training, addiction training, social activities, trips and picnics."
"Our duty is to keep our youth away from addiction and bad habits"
Responding to criticism that there is not enough budget allocated for the fight against addiction, Bak continued as follows:
"I also said in the last budget; it is a technical issue. We also discussed this in the strategy and budget. We say 73 million liras, we cannot change it. We only called for 200 million liras for NGOs and clubs in the 'Step by Step Hand in Hand: Action to Fight Addiction' program. We say to them for 200 million liras, 'You fight, we will support you. Let's do it together with you.' One of our duties is to keep our young people away from addiction and bad habits. One way of this is sports, the other way is art. Did you come to our theater competition? Did you come to the music concert played by young people? We made the final in Aspendos with 11 thousand children. "Come and see, listen to the children."
Bak gave the following answer to the question about whether he found the psychological counseling support given to young people in KYK dormitories sufficient:
"We are working on psychological and social support. We are hiring 150 psychologists and 300 social workers. Their interviews are currently being held, and they will also participate. We demand it. The sports psychologist is the same way. Even though children do not do it in person, they participate in this platform in the digital environment, they participate face to face. We are trying to increase the number. It did not exist 4-5 years ago. We put forward your demands and your electronic criticism and increase them. These are among them. The constraints of our budget are obvious, I say these too, but we have them." "We invest most of our revenues in youth and sports."
(To be continued)
