03 December 2001

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Expands Central Asian Broadcasts

Following is an announcement that Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/FL) has expanded its broadcasts in the Azeri, Farsi and Turkmen languages and will be phasing in more hours of these and other languages over the next two months:

(Prague, Czech Republic) - Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Inc. has expanded its broadcasts in the Azeri, Farsi and Turkmen languages, in the context of a general increase in RFE/RL's broadcasting presence in Central Asia.

"As part of RFE/RL's contribution to the war on terrorism, today we have increased by two hours the amount of broadcasting in Turkmen, added one and a half hours to our Azeri language broadcasts, and an additional hour to our Farsi broadcasts," said Thomas A. Dine, RFE/RL President.

Over the next two months, RFE/RL will phase in over twenty hours per day of expanded broadcasts in the Azeri, Farsi, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Turkmen and Uzbek languages and expand Arabic broadcasts by Radio Free Iraq.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is a private, international communications service to Eastern Europe and Southeastern Europe, Russia, the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Middle East funded by the US Congress through the Broadcasting Board of Governors.