Turkey to restore World Heritage Site

By Ozgur Ayaydin

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey

Diyarbakir Fortress and Hevsel Gardens Cultural Landscape’s magnificence will soon be visible to tourists.

The Diyarbakir Metropolitan Municipality has prepared a project to remove the visual pollution around the historical fortress and make it visible for tourists.

The project, approved by the Protection of Cultural Property Board, will provide landscape designing for a 71,000 square meters (around 764,000 square foot) area.

There will be 12 spots for visitors to take pictures of the walls, and the bastions. Paths for pedestrians and bikers will also be built.

UNESCO added the building to its tentative list in 2000, and it was listed as a World Heritage Site in 2015 along with the Hevsel Gardens.

The fortified city of southeastern Diyarbakir and the landscape around it has been an important centre since the Hellenistic period, through the Roman, Sassanid, Byzantine, Islamic and Ottoman times to the present, according to UNESCO’s official website.

Uncontrollable growing plants, arbours and sitting areas outside of the fortress block the magnificence of the walls, Cemil Koc, Head of Diyarbakir Fortress and Hevsel Gardens Cultural Landscape Site told Anadolu Agency.

Koc added that it is almost impossible to have sight of the walls, when the trees foliate during the summer.

Stating that the landscape area includes 33 bastions, Koc said that roots of the trees near these bastions are heavily harming the historical fortress.

He also added that 349 trees nearer than four meters to the bastions will be moved from the area.

“Fountains will also be built to meet the visitors need,” he said.

The area will also be lighted so tourists can witness the brilliance of the walls, he said:

“Once the works are done, walls will be seen not only in the morning, but also at night.”

The project will be carried out in 2018, he added.