ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Public Newroz celebrations in the Turkish province of Istanbul will be permitted for four hours on Tuesday after permission was granted by local officials.
Rudaw’s correspondent in Turkey’s largest city reported that three applications for Newroz celebrations were approved by the governorship with the public celebrations being permitted between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.
One of the primary celebration locations is Kartal Square in Istanbul, where it was reported there will be 400 security officials.
The people will be transported to the celebration areas by privately-owned busses.
HDP Lawmaker Osman Baydemir and former Mardin Mayor Ahmet Türk are expected to make speeches during the event.
Earlier this month, the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) said planned to hold several events culminating with a million-person gathering in the southern cities of Van and Diyarbakir.
A constitutional referendum will be held in Turkey on Sunday, 16 April.
Electors will be voting on a set of 18 proposed amendments to the constitution. The amendments include the introduction of an executive presidency that would effectively replace the existing parliamentary system, among other items.
For many Kurds, the lighting of fires and celebrating Newroz represents and the price that has been paid in preserving their Kurdish identities.
The banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Turkish state, led by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), launched a peace process in 2013 when the PKK’s jailed leader, Abdullah Ocalan, called on his armed party to begin negotiations aimed at ending the three-decade long conflict.
His call for peace was read during Diyarbakir’s Newroz celebration that year in Kurdish and Turkish.
“We are going through a new era and we should adapt ourselves to the spirit of it,” the PKK leader’s letter read, giving emphasis to the importance of peace process.
Ocalan suggested a “democratic solution” for the Kurdish problem and said that the new era for Kurds in Turkey "would be based on free, egalitarian, constitutional citizenship within the Republic of Turkey."
"We believe it is necessary for PKK to set up a congress to end the 40-year-long armed struggle” against Turkey, the jailed leader wrote.
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