Silopi ( ku, Silopî) is a city and district of

Şırnak Province Şırnak Province ( tr, Şırnak ili, ku, Parêzgeha Şirnexê) is a province of Turkey in the Southeastern Anatolia Region. Şırnak Province was created in 1990, with areas that were formerly part of the Siirt and Mardin Provinces. It borders ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...

Southeastern Anatolia Region The Southeastern Anatolia Region ( tr, Güneydoğu Anadolu Bölgesi) is a geographical region of Turkey. The most populous city in the region is Gaziantep. Other examples of big cities are Şanlıurfa, Diyarbakır, Mardin and Adıyaman. It ...

, close to the borders of

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...

and Syria. The majority of its people are of ethnic

Kurds ug:كۇردلار Kurds ( ku, کورد ,Kurd, italic=yes, rtl=yes) or Kurdish people are an Iranian ethnic group native to the mountainous region of Kurdistan in Western Asia, which spans southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Ira ...

. The district, composed of Silopi center, three townships with their own municipalities, and 23 villages, has an urban population of 73,400 (2009 census). The mayor Adalet Fidan of the HDP, who was elected in 2019, was deposed the same year and replaced by the sub-governor (

kaymakam Kaymakam, also known by many other romanizations, was a title used by various officials of the Ottoman Empire, including acting grand viziers, governors of provincial sanjaks, and administrators of district kazas. The title has been retained a ...

) Sezer Işiktaş as a "state-appointed caretaker" (acting mayor). The Habur frontier gate, the only major crossing between

and

, is in the district of Silopi and is a decisive factor in the region's economy. Queues of lorries waiting for customs and security clearance that sometimes reach a few dozen kilometers on the motorway connecting the two countries are a common sight. The Khabur River, which carries the same name as the frontier gate, crosses in the district territory and joins the

Tigris The Tigris () is the easternmost of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of the Armenian Highlands through the Syrian and Arabian Deserts, and empties into the ...

here. The Kirkuk-Ceyhan Oil Pipeline also crosses the district.

History

Turkish authorities placed the city of Silopi under curfew from 14 December 2015 – 4 January 2016. According to the Peoples' Democratic Party (Turkey), 20 people were killed. Since July 2015, 34 people have been killed in Silopi. On August 7, 2015, clashes between Turkish security forces and the Kurdish militant

PKK The Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK is a Kurdish militant political organization and armed guerrilla movement, which historically operated throughout Kurdistan, but is now primarily based in the mountainous Kurdish-majority regions of sout ...

group may have killed three people. Government reports claimed "terrorists" were killed, while pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party lawmaker Faysal Sarıyıldız said that the casualties were civilians and that he had seen no sign of armed militants, according to Reuters. The Kurdish-Turkish conflict in the region has escalated since late July 2015.

Employment

Şırnak Silopi power station is powered by

asphaltite Asphaltite (also known as uintahite, asphaltum, gilsonite or oil sands) is a naturally occurring soluble solid hydrocarbon, a form of asphalt (or bitumen) with a relatively high melting temperature. Its large-scale production occurs in the Uintah ...

coal and is claimed both to emit air pollution and to be an important source of employment. In 2020 the

EBRD The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is an international financial institution founded in 1991. As a multilateral developmental investment bank, the EBRD uses investment as a tool to build market economies. Initially foc ...

proposed a just transition to support workers who may lose jobs due to the decline of

coal in Turkey Coal supplies over a quarter of Turkey's primary energy. The heavily subsidised coal industry generates over a third of the country's electricity and emits a third of Turkey's greenhouse gases. Most coal mined in Turkey is lignite (brown ...

. Peanuts are grown.

References

External links

Governorship of Şırnak

Şırnak local newspaper
Populated places in Şırnak Province Districts of Şırnak Province Kurdish settlements in Turkey {{Şırnak-geo-stub

History

Employment

See also

References

External links