EMILY KWONG, HOST:
The Kurdistan Workers' Party, also known as the PKK, has been in conflict with the Turkish state for decades. Then this May, something changed. The group said it was laying down its arms, ending 40 years of conflict. And we wanted to know what that means for people who've lived through the violence, and what may come next. So we sent reporter Rebecca Rosman to southeastern Turkey, and that's where she met with two mothers, each grieving a child lost to the war.
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UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST: (Vocalizing).
REBECCA ROSMAN, BYLINE: The main street in Diyarbakir, Turkey's largest Kurdish city, is loud, busy, alive, even in the hundred-degree heat.
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UNIDENTIFIED STREET VENDOR: (Shouting in non-English language).
ROSMAN: An elderly man stirs a pot of sherbet, a red fruit drink made with spices. Others slice open fresh watermelons. Some sell tobacco, gold and silver.
ANGEL ISTEK ALCU: Really, it's full of life here. I like to be here, which is the street of your childhood.
ROSMAN: That's Angel Istek Alcu, my guide and proud lifelong resident of Diyarbakir. She says people here don't take this liveliness for granted because just 10 years ago, this street was a war zone. Clashes between Kurdish militants and Turkish forces erupted after a fragile peace process broke down. The city fell under curfew. People couldn't leave their homes for days at a time.
ALCU: I mean, even 10 kilometers away when you are sitting at your house, you could see - hear the bomb explosions, clashes. It was a kind of urban war here, you know?
ROSMAN: This had been going on for more than 40 years. It began in the 1980s, the PKK fighting first for independence, later for autonomy. Over the years, thousands of idealistic young people joined. By the end of the conflict, more than 40,000 people had been killed. So when the PKK's longtime leader, Abdullah Ocalan, who has been in jail for nearly three decades, called on the group to disarm earlier this year, reactions in Diyarbakir were mixed. The Turkish government welcomed the announcement, but many Kurds remain wary of what peace might actually look like. Some were skeptical. They'd seen ceasefires fall apart before. Others were hopeful. And on the streets, there were celebrations.
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ROSMAN: Many of those celebrating were mothers. Others kept their distance...
MEVLUDE UCDAG: (Speaking Kurdish).
ROSMAN: ...Like Mevlude Ucdag. For the past six years, the 46-year-old mother has sat inside a large white tent near the old offices of the pro-Kurdish HDP party, which the Turkish government has accused of having ties to the PKK. Ucdag is part of a protest group called the Mothers of Diyarbakir.
This is your son here?
UCDAG: (Speaking Kurdish).
ROSMAN: He's very young.
UCDAG: (Speaking Kurdish).
ROSMAN: The tent is lined with dozens of photos of their children. Some are missing, others presumed dead. Ucdag holds a photo of her son, Ramazan. He joined the PKK 11 years ago. She says he was taken, pulled from boarding school, sent into the mountains and given a gun.
UCDAG: (Through interpreter) The PKK brainwashed our children. They stole them from us.
ROSMAN: She blames the group for tearing her family apart and wants it gone. She hopes the recent call to disarm will hold and that her son will come home, despite reports he may be dead.
UCDAG: (Through interpreter) If I can hug my child, if this fighting ends, if peace finally comes to this country, that's enough. Then I can forgive.
ROSMAN: But not every grieving mother in Diyarbakir sees the PKK the same way...
SADET: (Speaking Kurdish).
ROSMAN: Rebecca.
SADET: Hello.
ROSMAN: ...Like Sadet, who asked us not to use her last name for fear of government reprisal. Her daughter, Rojbin, joined the PKK willingly. She was just 22 when she was killed in 2019.
Can you show us some of these pictures here?
Her living room has become a shrine to Rojbin, who smiles out from a cluster of photos. She has light brown hair and a big, toothy grin. Sadet is part of a group called the Mothers of Peace, Kurdish women who have spent decades calling for an end to the fighting through dialogue, not weapons.
SADET: (Speaking Kurdish).
ROSMAN: She's proud of her daughter's courage, even if she has complicated feelings about the group she fought for. She says she holds on to a special kind of pain that only mothers on all sides of this conflict can really understand.
SADET: (Speaking Kurdish).
ROSMAN: "We have the same suffering," she says, "the same burning in our hearts." She's not sure what this latest call for peace means for Kurdish rights, but she hopes it means no more children on either side will die the way hers did.
SADET: (Speaking Kurdish).
ROSMAN: "I don't want any more mothers to have the same pain as me," she says. And that alone, she says, is enough motivation for her to move forward. Rebecca Rosman, NPR News, Diyarbakir, southern Turkey.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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