Diyarbakır

Diyarbakır is the largest Kurdish-majority city in Turkey.Situated around a high plateau by the banks of the Tigris river on which stands the historic Diyarbakır Fortress, it is the administrative capital of the Diyarbakır Province of south-eastern Turkey. It is the third-largest city in Turkey’s Southeastern Anatolia Region, after Şanlıurfa and Gaziantep.Diyarbakır has been a main focal point of the conflict between the Turkish state and various Kurdish separatist groups, and is seen by many Kurds as the de facto capital of Kurdistan.The city was intended to become the capital of an independent Kurdistan following the Treaty of Sevres, but this was disregarded following subsequent political developments.

Amida, an ancient town predating Roman colonization in the 3rd century CE, was enlarged and strengthened under the Roman emperor Constantius II, who also erected new walls around the city (349). After a long siege, it fell to the king of Persia in 359. It changed hands frequently in the later wars between the Romans and the Persians and was in Byzantine hands when the Arabs took it (c. 639). With the weakening of Abbasid control over the region and the emergence of the Ḥamdānid dynasty of Mosul (in Iraq) in the 10th century, Amida was ruled by various Arab, Turkish, Mongol, and Persian dynasties until its capture by the Ottoman sultan in 1516. Capital of a large and important province under the Ottomans, it regained its prosperity. Its location near the Persian frontier also gave it strategic importance, and the town was used as a base for armies facing Persia.