Abdullah Demirbas News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Kurds, persecuted by the Turkish state, are only now beginning to face the role they played in the mass execution of Armenians a century ago.

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.

SHARE 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 proces...