I Will Return to Diyarbakır

By Rasıh Reşat

Diyarbakır- I came to Diyarbakır for the first time to attend the wedding of our friend Okan’s daughter, İrem Sıla, and Deniz Arjen. Let me begin by wishing them a lifetime of happiness. Without this lovely occasion, I might have put off seeing for myself a city I had spent years reading about, watching on screen and discussing.
As a journalist from Cyprus, I do not want to presume that a short visit has given me an understanding of Diyarbakır, much less the right to pass judgement on the pain it has lived through. But it has given me enough to share what I saw, and to know that I want to return and learn more.
As an incurable Beşiktaş supporter, arriving just after Amedspor beat us last week added another dimension to the visit. The city invited me to discover its history, its sorrows and its beauty, almost as if to say: “We’ve already met on the pitch.”
Passing the Four-Legged Minaret brought back memories of Tahir Elçi, the human rights lawyer and president of the Diyarbakır Bar Association who was shot dead there in November 2015, shortly after making a statement calling for an end to the violence and for the protection of the city’s historic sites. Though I was far away when he died, his death affected me deeply. Years later, the sorrow has not faded. I watched people walk between the minaret’s pillars and learned of the belief that doing so brings luck or helps a wish come true. The hopes they carried through that ancient structure stood, in my mind, alongside the darkness of its more recent history. 
I also visited Sezai Karakoç Boulevard, where Diyarbakır’s police chief Ali Gaffar Okkan and five officers were killed in an armed attack in January 2001. Seeing the place made another part of the city’s recent past feel closer. The pain these streets carry does not disappear behind the life I saw around me. It made me pay closer attention to it. 
For years, people looking at Diyarbakır from afar saw a city defined by terrorism and conflict. Walking through Sur, along streets once associated with fighting, I found a bustle that reminded me of Istanbul’s İstiklal Avenue and Kadıköy’s Bahariye Street. Looking at the fast-developing face of Cadde 75, I could not help thinking of Bağdat Avenue. You do not need to be an expert on Diyarbakır to notice these things; you only need to walk and look around.
It was here, amid the ordinary movement of people going about their lives, that Türkiye’s Terror-Free Türkiye initiative felt less like a phrase from a political speech and more like a possibility I could glimpse for myself. I would not claim that one visit tells me how far the process has come. But in a city so long spoken of through the language of conflict, I felt what it could mean for its future to be discussed in terms of peace and everyday life. 
What struck me was more than new buildings, shops or crowds. I saw a contemporary city living among the layers of its history, where different languages, beliefs and ways of life share the same streets. I have visited European capitals that felt less developed. To speak of Diyarbakır only through the legacy of ancient civilisations would be to miss the life being made here today.
The name Amed was everywhere I looked. It is the Kurdish name for Diyarbakır, and its visibility matters in a city where Kurdish words and the name Amed have, at different times, been pushed out of public view. I saw it in the message “I love Amed, so I keep it clean,” and I noticed Kurdish outside the municipal building too. In a city that has lived through periods of government-appointed administration, seeing its language and name expressed so openly felt like a tangible sign of its cultural richness. 
I am leaving Diyarbakır with the feeling that I have only begun to see it. The beauty of this first visit has opened the door to stories I have not yet heard, places I have not yet walked and questions I have not yet learned how to ask. That is why I will return: not to confirm an impression, but to deepen it. I want to stay longer, listen more carefully and meet the city beyond the routes a first visit allows.
And perhaps, by then, Beşiktaş will have settled the score with Amedspor. If not, I will still have a reason to smile when I arrive. Diyarbakır has given me something more lasting than a result: a promise I intend to keep.
I came as a visitor, but I left with a destination. I will return to Diyarbakır.