Thousands of people came together in Yüksekova for the Newroz celebrations marking the beginning of the Iranian New Year. The city of Yüksekova is in the province of Hakkari at the pre-dominantly Kurdish south-eastern tip of the country bordering with Iran and Iraq.

The Yuksekovahaber.com news site reported that the area of the celebration was scanned with detectors prior to the event. Furthermore, people entering the celebration area were body-searched by the police.

"Peace through dialogue"

A huge sign saying "Newroz" was installed in the middle of the place, one section of the area was reserved for the media and protocol.

Young people with covered faces demonstrated for Abdullah Öcalan, leader of the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party who is imprisoned on İmralı Island for ten years. They had large-scale posters of Öcalan. The celebrations started one hour late due to the heavy rush of people, buildings and roads around the celebration area were crowed with people who could not fit into the area any more. Many of the visitors wore traditional local dresses.

Banners in Kurdish and Turkish were posted around the area saying for instance, "Let's achieve peace by dialogue, not by war", "Newroz is the recreation of the life of a legend and a people" or "Either real democracy or none!"

Doves of peace

After lighting the Newroz fire, Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) Co-chairs Selahattin Demirtaş and Gültan Kışanak, ,Yüksekova Mayor Ruken Yetişkin and BDP Hakkari County Commissioner M. Sıddık Akış released doves of peace on the podium.

The opening speech was held by BDP Provincial Chair Hüsnü Bulgan. Mayor Yetişkin expressed his gratitude to the guests and called the event a historic Newroz celebration.

BDP Hakkari MP Hamit Geylani addressed the crowd in Kurdish, saying that it was his first time to host an event on such a significant day.

Geylani said that the celebrations were "the Newroz start for a solution", stating that nobody could reach to the power of struggle of the Kurdish people. The celebrations continued with music performances. (EÖ/VK)

* Photograph: DİHA