Erdogan told supporters of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) that his government had “launched the solution process, braving every risk so mothers wouldn’t cry, no more blood would spill, and people of every creed and faith would be brothers”.

The peace process between the Turkish government and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), an armed organization that has fought for some four decades for Kurdish autonomy and designated terrorist by Turkey and its Western allies, started in 2013 and continued until the summer of 2015, when the death of two police officers near the Syrian border became the official reason for its collapse.

“They provoked the process we started in sincerity. They poisoned it,” Erdogan said, referring to the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), the second largest opposition group in parliament that he frequently accuses of having ties with the PKK.

“Their secret agendas and ulterior motives ended the process,” the president said, accusing the HDP of “never thinking to engage in politics within the legitimate, democratic, lawful order”.

Erdogan defended the dismissal of HDP’s elected mayors by his Interior Ministry, saying, “Not removing them from duty would have been treason against you.” More than 50 mayors who were elected to office from the HDP in 2019 have been dismissed and most of them have been imprisoned on terrorism charges.

The president also accused the HDP of collaborating with Israel, and to “put every deviant, perverted, marginal group under their command”.

Before the inauguration ceremony Erdogan spoke at, he had visited the HDP’s provincial offices to meet with the Diyarbakir Mothers, a group comprised mostly of women who have held a sit-in in front of the HDP offices since 2019 demanding the return of their children who they say were tricked or abducted by the PKK.

“Those who send the children of others to die on the mountains raise their own children abroad with such care,” the president said.

Erdogan announced a new project regarding the infamous Diyarbakir Prison, where thousands of Kurds faced severe torture in the aftermath of the 1980 military coup. Many among prominent Kurdish politicians today have spent time in the prison during its worst years, between 1981 and 1984.

The prison is to be transformed into a cultural center, Erdogan announced. “We will have removed one bad memory from Diyarbakır’s memory,” he said.

There had been another project in 2009 to turn the prison into a school, which was shelved after intense protests.

In his speech Erdogan also spoke about Syria, saying that Syrian Kurdish groups, which receive support from the United States, are planning to “abolish the family and private property in the long term”, state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

Such “marginal ideologies” only exist in today’s world “in North Korea, Qandil, and Kobani”, said Erdogan. Kobani is a Syrian Kurdish town on the border with Turkey that has played an integral role in the emergence of a definitive fight against the Islamic State (ISIS), while Qandil is a mountainous area in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region where the PKK has its main base.

Erdogan accused Syrian Kurdish groups of conscripting child soldiers and abducting 13-year-old girls.

Before Erdogan arrived in Diyarbakir, the district of Sur was closed for traffic. Thousands of police officers were deployed along Erdogan's route through the city, as well as armored vehicles stationed throughout, Mezopotamya reported.

The district had been almost completely razed to the ground following the resurgence of the conflict in 2015. Starting in August 2015, clashes between pro-PKK youth militias and the Turkish army resulted in extensive damage to Sur, with a total of 3,569 buildings being destroyed by March 2016, wrote Nurcan Baysal, a Kurdish journalist who is also a native of the district.

In 2017, the Alipasa neighborhood in Sur was also demolished, the government saying the whole area was destined for urban renovation. Authorities at the time promised to preserve the historic character of the district, which has been inhabited for seven millennia.

A group of recently completed buildings in the district named after the historic walls of the old city appear to be in complete disregard, however. The buildings were “reminiscent of prisons”, Diyarbakir Chamber of Architects Co-chair Ferit Kahraman told Mezopotamya.

Ahead of the president’s visit, a video of street interviews had gone viral, showing citizens urging Erdogan to cancel the visit. “Doesn’t he know how much people hate him?” asked one citizen, while a young girl pleaded, “Please don’t come, please.”

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