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PRISTINA - Ethnic Turkish community leader in Kosovo-Metohija Zejnelabadin Kureis met in Kosovo- Metohija's city of Pristina on Wednesday with Major Roland Lavoie of the international KFor force.
Kureis, member of the ethnic Turkish Democratic Party Main Board, told reporters after the meeting they had discussed the present unfavourable position of ethnic Turks in that U.N.-administered province of the Yugoslav republic of Serbia.
Before NATO's air strikes on Yugoslavia from March 24 to June 10, the ethnic Turkish community in Kosovo-Metohija had numbered more than 50,000 members, and had enjoyed all rights, Kureis said.
They had had dozens of primary and secondary schools and even university-level education in their mother-tongue, as well as societies for promoting their national identity and culture, he added.
Television and radio programme in the Turkish language had been broadcast from studios in the province's cities of Pristina, Kosovska Mitrovica, Prizren and Gnjilane, and they had printed a daily newspaper and several magazines, he went on to say.
When the air strikes started, more than 10,000 Turks fled Kosovo- Metohija, and another 30,000 have left since the deployment of KFor, he said.
According to Kureis, nobody guarantees the remaining ethnic Turks' safety of person and property, and a large number of them are living on a subsistence level.