Experiment in communal living in Eastern Turkey destroyed

Abdullah Demirbas
New York Times

Former mayor of Diyarbakir’s historic Sur district in eastern Turkey describes how an experiment in peaceful communal living among different ethnic and religious groups has been violently destroyed by the Turkish authorities. In 2007, Sur became the first municipality in Turkey to offer services in local languages, including Kurdish, Armenian and Assyrian, besides the official Turkish — a move that infuriated the authorities in Ankara, the capital, and led to his removal as mayor. Now that experiment is in ruins in the devastating war imposed by the Erdogan regime on the Kurds. Read on