Ramazan Tunç, walking through a maze of alleyways in the historic center of Diyarbakir, Turkey, pointed out the stones of Sur. To him, they tell a story.
“These are the places of the bullets,” he said, running his hand across pockmarks in the foundation of an age-old minaret. “There were barricades entrenched just behind here.”
It’s visual testimony to the area’s long-standing conflict. For more than 40 years, the Turkish government has fought the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or the PKK, in eastern Turkey, northern Iraq and in Syria.
At the height of the PKK insurgency in the 1990s, the Turkish army burned villages in the Kurdish countryside. Families who lost their homes moved to Sur where their relatives took them in, adding extra stories on top of their existing homes. Their houses grew taller, stretching up and over the winding streets.
“This made the city to be like a labyrinth,” Tunç said. “But the streets are very well connected.”
Now, with recent efforts to establish a ceasefire between the Turkish government and the PKK, many hope that this city — and region — will mean a new chapter for this embattled city.
A former PKK fighter, whose name isn’t being used due to the legal risks of speaking to the media, said from the back room of an old cafe in Sur that he joined the insurgency in 1992, when he was 16.
His decision came after three of his uncles were tortured by security forces in prison, he said. At that point, he considered an armed insurgency to be necessary. Now, he said, things have changed.
“Now, there needs to be a democratization of society and a strong civil society movement,” he said.
The PKK is still listed as a terror group by the US and the European Union. It has carried out attacks that have killed civilians on Turkish soil as recently as October of last year. But, echoing a ceasefire call made by the PKK’s imprisoned leader, Abdullah Ocalan, on Feb. 28, the former fighter said that he believes the insurgency has run its course.
“The times are changing, the times are evolving,” he said.
Today, the PKK is no longer seeking its own territory but political and cultural rights for Kurdish people in Turkey, such as allowing Kurdish-language schools and releasing Kurdish politicians from prison.
“The goal is to democratize [Turkey] and pressure the state to recognize the existence of Kurds,” he said.
An embattled city
The PKK entrenched themselves in Sur when peace talks with the Turkish government last broke down in 2015. The historic part of the city is surrounded by tall, fortified walls first built by the Romans — perched on a hilltop overlooking the green banks of the Tigris River.
For three months, Turkish military tanks placed the city under curfew as they occupied the other side of Sur. Nearly half of Sur was destroyed in the fighting between Turkey and the PKK. Human rights groups say at least 200 people died.
In recent years, the Turkish government rebuilt Sur but the newer houses look more like jails, Tunç said, explaining that they aren’t tied to Kurdish identity or culture.
The avenues are wide enough to accommodate military equipment. Apartment buildings are white and boxy, with thin walls and broken windows. They don’t appear to have anyone living in them yet.
“They are aiming to destroy memory. And very few generations will remember what happened,” Tunç said.
As the PKK retreated to its strongholds in the mountains of northern Iraq, the Turkish government followed, conducting airstrikes in the Qandil mountains.
In northeastern Syria, PKK affiliates joined a US-backed coalition, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces. Turkey attacked them, too.
Turkish officials have maintained that these cross-border airstrikes are necessary to protect Turkey.
Support for a ceasefire
Aras Yussef, a researcher for the Kurdish Peace Institute, is based in the Syrian border city of Qamishli. Yussef said that many people there welcomed the PKK’s call for a ceasefire with the Turkish government.
“If both reached an agreement, Turkey will have no more pretexts to continue shelling Kurdish areas in Syria,” he said.
Soner Çağaptay, an analyst at the Washington Institute, said that US military leaders likely leaned heavily on Kurdish militias in Syria to accept Turkey’s conditions for a ceasefire, possibly warning that the US would soon withdraw military support.
“I think Syrian Kurds know that once the US exits, they’re going to be facing Turkey or Damascus.”
Earlier this week, the Kurdish coalition inked a deal to join Syria’s fledgling central government. In many ways, Çağaptay said, the PKK’s leaders have been forced into a position where they have no more room to negotiate.
“For this leadership to agree to disband the PKK, it’s the equivalent of saying, ‘I’ve thrown my life away for nothing.’”
In a March 1 press briefing shortly after the PKK said it would accept a ceasefire, the National Defense Ministry spokesperson, Zeki Akturk, made it clear that the Turkish government had no intention of stopping. He announced that strikes had killed 26 militants in Iraq and Syria over the past week.
“We will not stop until every single terrorist is eliminated,” Akturk said.