Israel uses three languages on its street signs; Hebrew, English and Arabic. That may be something most people take for granted when walking or driving around the country. For Abdullah Demirbas, a former mayor of the important Sur district in the city
Now in exile after being persecuted by Ankara, Abdullah Demirbas has propelled a vision of coexistence in Turkey that includes Armenians, Jews, Kurds and other minorities.
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In January 2016, I paid a visit to Diyarbakir, the largest city and de facto capital of Turkey’s Kurdish-majority south-east. The previous month, its ancient centre, known as Sur, and more than a dozen other regional cities had been put under a 24-hour curfew as the Turkish military moved against the urban positions of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Labelled a terrorist group by the US, EU and Turkey, the PKK has fought an insurgency in the south-east since the mid-1980s. The government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) initiated a peace process with the militant group in 2013, which made considerable progress leading up to the June 2015 parliamentary elections.