Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Nov. 13 that his meeting with Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) President Massoud Barzani in Diyarbakir this weekend will be “historic.”

Indeed, it is going to mark the first visit of Barzani to Diyarbakir — the hotbed of Kurdish nationalism in Turkey — as president of the KRG. It also will be Shivan Perwer’s first visit to his hometown after 37 years in exile in Germany.

Perwer escaped Turkey when court cases against him started to pile up because he insisted on singing and recording Kurdish songs. Those court cases abated in his absence, and he has never been convicted. But he became a symbol of the Kurdish people of the suffering brought about by not being able to use Kurdish freely.

His return, therefore, is promising to be an emotional one. Ruling Justice and Development Party buses touring Diyarbakir today even played Perwer’s songs in Kurdish. There also are posters in Kurdish across the city using the letters Q, W, and X, (which became legally acceptable by Erdogan's announcement of the democratization package in October) stating, “The master of the peace process, our prime minister, is coming to Diyarbakir.”