In the early evening of 7 June 2015 Diyarbakır erupted. The largest Kurdishpopulated city in Turkey's south-east, Diyarbakır sits astride the River Tigris, approximately 1,000 kilometres as the crow flies from Istanbul, a short distance from the borders of Syria and Iraq. For most, if not all, Kurds in Turkey, Diyarbakır looms large as a city of historical significance, a centre for political, cultural and intellectual activity. Some look upon it as a başkent, a capital city, to a putative state that exists only in name: Kurdistan.

Diyarbakır is no stranger to eruptions. Since the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, the city has often been the scene of political violence and confrontation between Kurds and the instruments of the Turkish state. A Kurdish rebellion led by Sufi Sheikh Said broke out in Diyarbakır province in February 1925, the hapless sheikh being captured within two months and hung from the gallows near one of the grand gates in the old city walls. The uprising that Sheikh Said led was, in large measure, a reaction to the impositions of the newly formed Republic, which, premised on ‘unity of language, culture and ideal’, sought to deny the very existence of Kurds within its borders. Over fifty years later, amid ongoing disavowal of the Kurds’ existence and smothering of their political voices, Diyarbakır again became a flashpoint. Abdullah Öcalan and a cohort of Kurdish nationalists, seeking to carve an independent ‘Kurdistan’ out of Turkish territory, established the Kurdistan Worke rs’ Party (Partiya Karkeren Kurdistane, PKK) in Diyarbakır.

The PKK embarked on a military campaign that ravaged Turkey's Kurdishpopulated south-east and saw the PKK swiftly branded a terrorist organisation by the state. Diyarbakır became a site of Kurdish civilian protest, routinely met by the heavy hand of Turkey's security apparatus, and its hinterland saw clashes between PKK operatives and the Turkish armed forces continuing intermittently for over thirty years.

On that summer evening in 2015, sitting in a hotel room in Sur, the old walled city of Diyarbakır, I heard, from outside my window, a ripple of bangs and roars. I was familiar with the city's history of political tensions and violence. Such precedents did not reassure me that loud outbursts were of a peaceful nature – but the circumstances now appeared to be different.