Daily life struggles on in Turkey's Sur as curfew enters 83rd day

Residents, business owners and local officials have expressed their wish for a return to peace in the six neighborhoods of Sur in the southeastern city of Diyarbak?r that have been under curfew for over 80 days, amid military operations against outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants.

"When the peace process was still in place, Diyarbak?r was busier and more crowded than it had ever been," Jiyan Edemen, a 19-year-old college student living in Sur, told daily Hürriyet, saying a resumption of peace talks between the Turkish government and the PKK was a must. 

A number of towns in Turkey's east and southeast have seen fierce clashes between security forces and PKK militants since the collapse of the peace process in July 2015, when PKK militants shot dead two police officers inside their apartment in the Ceylanp?nar district of the southeastern province of ?anl?urfa. That triggered a rise in clashes between security forces and militants, shattering a fragile peace process and a two-and-a-half-year de facto cease-fire.

The manager of a historic inn in Sur, Sait Özkan, said the district was no stranger to military curfews. 

"There were curfews in the 1980s and 90s. But back then everyone had normal lives during the daytime. I don't get how these trenches came about this time," Özkan said, referring to barricades and trenches dug in the streets by militants creating "liberated zones."

"Right now it's more important to save our lives than build Toledo," Özkan added ironically. He was referring to Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu's remarks earlier this month that Sur would eventually be "reconstructed so beautifully that it will become a tourist attraction with its architectural texture ... It will be rebuilt just...