The conference, entitled “A Perspective for Peace in the Middle East”, was held in Turin, Italy, in partnership with the Municipality of Turin, the Regional Committee for Human Rights and the Regional Government of Piedmont, with support from the CRT Foundation. Participants from Türkiye included Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality Co-Mayor Serra Bucak, Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) MPs Berdan Öztürk and Dilan Kunt Ayan, and representatives of civil society organisations. The opening session featured Turin Deputy Mayor Dott.ssa Michela Favaro, Giampiero Leo, a member of the CRT Foundation and spokesperson for the Piedmont Interfaith Coordination, and Co-Mayor Serra Bucak.

Addressing the appointment of trustees

Speaking in Kurdish, Co-Mayor Serra Bucak addressed the experience of local government as a foundation for a democratic society, municipal governance and the co-mayoral system, local autonomy and democratic participation, as well as resistance to the appointment of trustees and pressure from central government. Noting that trustees had been appointed to Diyarbakır Metropolitan Municipality and other municipalities governed by the DEM Party on numerous occasions in previous years, and that such appointments were continuing, Co-Mayor Bucak also assessed the political, social and economic issues affecting the region.

Democracy develops from the local level

Co-Mayor Bucak examined the governance challenges faced by countries experiencing conflict, including Türkiye, and the contradictions and conflicts between central and local government. She emphasised that democratic society and governance are built not through centralised impositions by nation states, but in neighbourhoods, villages, popular assemblies, women's assemblies and youth assemblies. Reminding participants that municipalities provide the first point of contact between democracy and everyday life, and offer a space for communities to govern themselves and develop solutions to their problems, she stressed the need to acknowledge shortcomings through a self-critical approach, alongside recognising democratic achievements.

An overview of municipal experience

Recalling that the Kurdish democratic movement's experience in municipal government began in 1999 with the People's Democracy Party (HADEP), Co-Mayor Bucak stressed that municipal services had expanded beyond conventional public services such as roads, water supply and waste collection. She added that, following a paradigm shift in Kurdish politics, the public had become more actively involved in decision-making. Municipalities governed by her party had developed city councils, neighbourhood assemblies, women's centres, cooperatives, multilingual services and cultural institutions, turning the municipality into a school of democratic politics.

Co-Mayor Bucak stated that the transformation in both service provision and the principles underpinning municipal governance under the DEM Party tradition — including democracy, freedom, justice, equality and transparency — had also caused concern for central government.

The co-mayoral system and women's freedom

Drawing on her own experience, Co-Mayor Bucak explained how the co-mayoral system and women's freedom serve as measures of democracy. She noted that, since 2014, every municipality won by the Kurdish democratic movement had been jointly governed by a woman and a man, with decisions taken collectively and accountability to the public shared.

She emphasised that the co-mayoral system was not a gender quota. Under a quota system, women are incorporated into a structure established by men; the co-mayoral system, by contrast, transforms the structure itself and challenges the patriarchal arrangement in which men alone occupy positions of authority. She pointed to the resulting establishment of women's centres and shelters, women's cooperatives, and decisions and budgets that take gender equality and women's presence into account. Women who had faced difficulties in many areas were now shaping their own futures by taking part in decision-making in local government, she added.

Co-Mayor Bucak also addressed shortcomings in the allocation of budgets and powers between central and local government, arguing that these had led to poor planning in areas including land, water, energy, climate and animal rights. Referring to an alternative to the centralising policies of nation states, she described their project as a form of local power that develops upwards from communes and neighbourhoods. Highlighting the city's diversity, she stressed that Kurds, Turks, Arabs, Syriacs and Armenians live together and make decisions collectively.

“We also learn from struggles elsewhere in the world”

Noting that the movement also drew lessons from struggles elsewhere in the world, Co-Mayor Bucak referred to the participatory budgeting system introduced in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 1989. She said the system had given neighbourhood assemblies genuine oversight and gained international recognition, but had later been hollowed out and reduced to a technical instrument as political circumstances changed.

The lesson, she explained, was that participation dependent on a political party remaining in power was fragile and liable to collapse. Instead, participation needed to become deeply rooted in society and be protected by law. She also noted that the example of Rojava had demonstrated that democratic confederalism was possible even under the most difficult conditions, through the work of communes, co-mayors and women's assemblies.

“The process has opened a new door”

Co-Mayor Bucak said the “Call for Peace and a Democratic Society” issued on 27 February had opened a new door, and that the Kurdish movement had taken historic steps. The state, she added, now needed to take steps of its own. In this context, she described local democracy as the clearest test of the process, stressing that a peace process could not inspire confidence if trustees remained in charge of municipalities or municipal assets had yet to be returned.

She stated that the Kurdish movement remained confident and determined in its struggle, but that steps taken by the state needed to translate into tangible improvements in everyday life. She called on Türkiye to withdraw its reservations to the European Charter of Local Self-Government as part of the process. Co-Mayor Bucak also invited the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe to monitor developments and underlined the importance of cooperation between cities.

Calling for municipalities placed under trustee administration to be returned immediately to their elected representatives, Co-Mayor Bucak urged international pro-democracy forces to take a firmer stand against such practices.