Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu visited the Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbakir. Northeast TurkeyBoth talked about peace and the transformation of Diyarbakir military prison into a cultural center, known as the worst prison in the world after dozens of prisoners were killed under torture and others were permanently disabled.
Erdogan and his interior minister in Diyarbakir
Soylu also felt that “peace will prevail in Diyarbakir, Iraq and Syria”, during his participation with the Turkish president at the inauguration of some projects in the city of Diyarbakir, which Erdogan has promised to turn his infamous prison into a “cultural center”. What are the messages that Soylu and the Turkish President wanted to convey by visiting the city with a Kurdish majority.
Haydar Çakmak, an expert on Turkish and academic international relations, denied that the Turkish president and his interior minister had had any messages in Damascus and Baghdad when Soylu spoke of “peace in Iraq and Syria”, considering that the speech of both was purely internal in preparation for winning the votes of Kurdish voters who make up the majority of Diyarbakir’s population. , in the presidential and parliamentary elections to be held in Turkey in June next year 2023.
Çakmak told Al Arabiya.net that “the Turkish president’s visit to Diyarbakir was an attempt to win the Kurdish votes he had previously lost, especially as the elections will be several months away next summer, and for this I think Erdogan will repeat. his visits to Diyarbakir in the next period. “
He added that “Erdogan’s government has been conducting military operations for months in the Kurdish region in northern Iraq and Syria, so he and his interior minister used words to sympathize with Kurdish voters,” noting that “this is exactly what happened, and the goal was never to deliver any message to Damascus and Baghdad. “
He added: “It was the Turkish Interior Minister who oversaw the implementation of most of the military operations against PKK fighters in both Iraq and Syria, and Turkish intelligence was recently able to arrest senior officials of the PKK and were either taken to Turkey or liquidated, which angers the nationalist Kurds, so Soylu spoke of peace to tell the Kurds that we distinguish between terrorists and the Kurdish people and that the government will meet their needs ”.
The Turkish president and his interior minister paid a surprise visit to the city of Diyarbakir last Sunday when they opened several service and development projects in the predominantly Kurdish city in southeastern Turkey.
The Turkish president announced from Diyarbakir that he would turn the city prison into an “artistic and cultural monument” during a speech in the presence of a small crowd of supporters of his party.
Erdogan said that the Ministry of Justice has completed the procedures for the evacuation of the “Diyarbakir prison”, and handed it over to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, stressing that the prison building will be transformed into a building that includes a museum, a library and many other cultural and artistic departments.
