Futurological perspectives of Governor Osman /”LIKE FRANKFURT”

We must make Urfa regain its status and become the center of trade, like Frankfurt.” He said he intends to make Urfa “the Frankfurt of the region.”

Diyarbakir’s Kurdish Governor Confident in Mayoral Bid in Urfa

By Deniz Serinci – 27.3.2014 – DIYARBAKIR, Turkey – The pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) in Turkey is trying to unseat the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) this Sunday in mayoral elections in Urfa, a multiethnic city of Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen.

BDP candidate Osman Baydemir, who is currently governor of Diyarbakir, told Iraqi and Kurdish reporters he was confident of winning the mayorship.  But he also recognized the tough task of unseating the AKP mayor now in place.

A large part of Urfa’s population are ethnic Arab and Turkmen, who usually do not vote for the Kurdish BDP. But according to Baydemir, the support for him is growing “day by day, hour by hour.””I am convinced that in the local elections on March 30, we will win and make sure that Urfa regains its identity,” he said, promising that nobody would suffer discrimination over ethnicity, identity or language. “Urfa is a Turkmen, Arab and Kurdish city, which could become a model for the entire Middle East with its peaceful coexistence between religions and peoples.”

He said he intends to make Urfa “the Frankfurt of the region.”

“We must take care to make Urfa a trade city throughout Mesopotamia. Urfa is the richest city with its soil, sun and water. But unfortunately, thousands of Urfa’s citizens every season are drawn to the Black Sea and Mediterranean regions for work. We must make Urfa regain its status and become the center of trade, like Frankfurt.”

According to Ahmet Alis, a historian from Bogazici University and an expert on Kurds in Turkey,  Urfa is one of the strategic cities for the BDP and symbolically very important, because Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party who remains in a Turkish jail, is from the same area. Alis told Rudaw that the election rivals are in a dead heat, and that Baydemir could come out on top if he manages to get the support of tribal leaders.

Noting his mayoral role in Diyarbakir, Alis said that Baydemir comes with a decade of experience, and it helps that Urfa is a neighboring city of Diyarbakir.Baydemir said that one thing he feared was possible electoral fraud. “It is not something that we have not seen in Turkey. Manipulation and acts of tampering vote counts can happen.”  Some polls in Turkey have predicted a landslide victory for the AKP in Urfa.

– See more at: http://rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/27032014#sthash.eM78i8jh.dpuf