Cologne (Germany), May 17 (IANS/DPA): The Turkish-Islamic Union of the Institute for Religion (DITIB) announced in Cologne on Friday that from 2025 onwards, 75 graduates of Islamic theology from Turkey will be trained in Germany every year.

The young men are to receive intensive German and integration courses in Germany. After a total of two years of training, they will be required to work as Imams in German DITIB mosques for at least 10 years.

"We offer them the prospect of staying in Germany so that cooperation in the local communities can flourish," said DITIB Secretary General Eyup Kalyon.

The new Imam training programme is intended to gradually replace the more than 1,000 preachers currently working in Germany for the Turkish Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet).

The German government and Turkey agreed on a roadmap for this in December because the Imams, who are usually sent by Diyanet for four years, follow instructions from Ankara as Turkish civil servants, hardly speak any German and usually only have a sketchy knowledge of the realities of life in German society.

The German government had announced that it would financially support the training of further Imams in Germany.

DITIB also wants to continue its Imam training programme, which has been running since 2020 and is aimed at Muslim theologians from Germany.

So far, a total of 58 men and women have been trained as "Islamic religious representatives" in two courses, said Kalyon.

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