Turkey provincial commerce chamber adds Kurdish to logo in rare move

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The chamber of commerce in Turkey’s Kurdish Diyarbakir (Amed) province has updated its official logo for the first time in 143 years, adding the Kurdish translation of the organization’s name.

In a rare move, the phrase Odeya Pîşesazî û Bazirganiyê - Kurdish for Chamber of Commerce and Industry - was added beneath the Turkish text on the institution’s official logo. The updated version was first seen Tuesday during a meeting between chamber head Mehmet Kaya and Russia’s trade representative to Turkey, Aidar Gashigullin, who was visiting for the 17th Mesopotamia Exhibition for Agriculture.

“That council unanimously decided to include Kurdish writing on our logo,” Kaya told Rudaw. "No obstacles were put in our way, and the work was carried out in accordance with the law.”

The Diyarbakir Chamber of Commerce and Industry was established in 1883 under the name Diyarbakır Commercial Council. It is one of the oldest professional institutions in the city and has around 26,000 members, with a 43-member administrative council.

Kaya said the chamber had initially planned to change “the overall design of the logo” as well, but later “reversed that decision” without elaborating, opting instead to only add Kurdish text to the existing design.

He added that when the proposal was presented to the council, all 43 members “voted yes to the decision.”

“Moving forward, we will use this logo everywhere,” he said.

Kaya noted that Kurdish is already commonly used among council members without issue, but “the issue of adding Kurdish text to our chamber's logo required a formal procedure.”

He said the chamber also plans to add Kurdish to signage on its building in the coming days.

Addressing potential future challenges, Kaya said “we conducted the necessary monitoring and investigations, and our legal experts assured us that under current Turkish law, there are no legal obstacles to adding Kurdish to our logo.”

“Even if there had been an obstacle, we would have taken legal steps and resolved the issue,” he added.

Since the establishment of modern Turkey in the early 1920s, the public use of Kurdish - including speaking, publishing, or singing - was at times banned. The current constitution, ratified after a military coup in 1980 and most recently amended in 2017, identifies Turkish as the official language in the country. Restrictions have been eased, but public use of the language remains stigmatized.

Under the restrictions on the language, many Kurds in Turkey do not speak their mother tongue. A study by the Socio-Political Field Research Center in May 2024 revealed a sharp decline in the use of Kurdish at home in Turkey, with only 42.2 percent of Kurds regularly speaking the language.


Kosar Osman contributed to this article from Erbil, Kurdistan Region.