ERBIL, Kurdistan Region— “We kindly ask the prime minister not to mention Toledo again,” says Mehmet Kaya, a Diyarbakir-based Kurdish researcher in reference to comments made by the Turkish Prime Minister, Ahmed Davutoglu who compared the war-torn Kurdish district of Sur to the reconstruction of the historic city of Toledo in Spain after Spanish Civil War of 1930s.
“It is insulting, really. People want Sur to remain Sur. They have history here. To compare a city to another won’t preserve its spirit,” Kaya says who runs the Dicle Social Research Institute (DITAM) in the main city of Diyarbakir.
Toledo declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1986 for its rich cultural and monumental heritage, was also widely known for the peaceful co-existence of many different cultures, including the Jewish, Muslim and Christian civilizations.
Ankara says it will invest some $9 billion in reconstructing the country’s southeast where Sur and most other Kurdish cities are located.
Sur was one of the most affected areas in the extended clashes between the army and Kurdish guerrillas last year with many of its private and public constructions leveled to the ground.
A fragile ceasefire was announced in early March, which ended the curfews and the larger clashes, although guerrilla bombings and army airstrikes still frequently take place in many areas.
The government has said it will construct new apartments in Sur, which displaced residents can own as compensation for their demolished homes. Though largely subsidized, the new accommodations will not fully be free of charge for those who plan to own them.
“Every family needs to take a government loan to pay for the new apartments,” Says Merthan Aken who is an engineer and owns a number of buildings that were destroyed in Sur.
“Families who move into these apartments will be paying back their loans for the rest of their live. It makes them dependent on the government,” Akan says and describes the decision as “a political move.”
The government has already declared 18 districts in the city as “state property” where nearly 6,500 historical and cultural sites including the Great Mosque of Diyarbakır, the Kurşunlu Mosque and the Sheikh Matar Mosque are.
Authorities have asked the residents to move into the new apartments, which are planned to be built in the outskirts of the city.
Diyarbakir’s lawyers syndicate staged a protest on March 29 against the government’s decision to relocate the residents in Sur and called the decision “unlawful displacement of local people.”
“Probably Sur will not become a Toledo anyway,” says Kaya from Dicle Institute. “And we don’t want Toledo, we want our own Sur,” he adds.
