Diyarbakır Fortress and Hevsel Gardens Cultural Landscape

• Concern over the situation prevailing in Diyarbakir (issue resolved)
• Rehabilitation and reconstruction works and development
• Ground transport infrastructure (roads)
• Water infrastructure
• Impacts of tourism/visitor/recreation
• Management system/Management and Conservation Plan modified
• Land Conversion

N/A

On 2 February 2022, the State Party submitted a state of conservation report. Its executive summary is available at https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1488/documents/. The report addresses the recommendations of the World Heritage Committee as follows:

• Works carried out to the Diyarbakir City Walls are considered by the State Party to have no negative impact on the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of the property. All bastions and fortifications walls were evaluated and documented, identifying structural problems and emergency response requirements. Restoration works were or are being done in numerous bastions and some City Wall sections as well as a landscape project in front of bastion 52;
• In the inner buffer zone (Suriçi District), four urban design projects were realized, aiming to transform the area into a healthy and safe urban living space, also taking into account the contemporary urbanism principles and disaster risk. The State Party reports that for all works in the Buffer Zone (Suriçi), the historical texture of the site was taken into consideration and the implementations that would adversely affect the visual integrity were avoided by limiting the construction to two floors. An Urban Design Guide was prepared to ensure a traditional character for newly built buildings. Urban rehabilitation projects were conducted with limited height and a view to tackle illegal housing (mentioned in the Nomination file). Reconciliation negotiations have been conducted for citizens who have lost their residences. Street rehabilitation work, a vehicle road around Suriçi, a touristic tour route and several landscape projects have been completed to meet the needs for green space and social facilities;
• The 2016 amendment to the 2012 Conservation Plan responds to the need to redefine the organisation of the deteriorated physical space following the incidents in 2015, the expansion of the traditional street fabric and the establishment of government agency areas. It is therefore impossible to halt its implementation;
• In 2021, all four main Gates of the Fortress were documented and restored;
• Heritage Impact Assessments (HIAs) of seven projects that may have an impact on the OUV will be finalised and submitted to the World Heritage Centre for review;
• The HIA of a Tram Line project was submitted as an annex to the State Party’s report;
• In 2020 and 2021, excavations at the Citadel continued in a systematic way.

The joint World Heritage Centre/ICOMOS Reactive Monitoring mission requested by Decision 41 COM 7B.50 (Krakow, 2017) and reiterated in subsequent Committee Decisions, was invited twice by the State Party and took place from 28 November to 3 December 2022. The mission assessed the overall management of the property as well as its state of conservation, in particular with regard to changes since its inscription on the World Heritage List, and reviewed projects already implemented and planned in the property, its buffer zone and wider setting in relation to their potential impact on the OUV of the property.

In January 2023, following the mission, the State Party submitted to the World Heritage Centre an HIA dated April 2022 for seven projects, of which five had been completed by that date and two were still being implemented and nearing completion. All seven projects were implemented by the Ministry of Environment, Urbanism and Climate Change. The HIA was reviewed by ICOMOS, and the Technical Review was transmitted to the State Party on 9 August 2023.

Following the devastating earthquakes that struck the provinces of Adiyaman, Diyarbakir, Şanliurfa and Malatya in February 2023, the State Party of Türkiye informed the World Heritage Centre on 7 and 23 February 2023 that only minor damage had been observed in St. George’s Church and that some stone spills occurred in bastion 22 at Urfa Gate, which previously had stability issues. UNESCO contributed as part of the UN Country Team in Türkiye, to the culture sector chapter of the Türkiye Earthquake Recovery and Reconstruction Assessment (TERRA), which estimates the damage to the cultural assets and museums under the responsibility of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism at approximately USD 53 million. A publication of UNDP Offer and Proposed Projects for Recovery and Reconstruction features the restoration of cultural heritage as a main pillar and envisages a large-scale recovery programme.

At meetings held on 27 April and 26 July 2023 between the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the Permanent Delegation of Türkiye to UNESCO and UNESCO, it was confirmed that emergency recovery and damage assessment tasks were well advanced, if not nearly complete. At the time of writing this report, no official request for technical and/or financial assistance has been submitted to UNESCO.

In accordance with the mandate entrusted to it by the Committee (Decisions 41 COM 7B.50 and 44 COM 7B.56), the 2022 Reactive Monitoring mission to the property reports that the property, its buffer zone and setting have undergone significant change since inscription on the World Heritage List in 2015. Most of these changes are directly due to projects implemented by the State Party.

The State Party reports ongoing and completed work to the City Walls and bastions, evaluated by the mission as being of international standard. The archaeological investigations undertaken at the Içkale Artuqid Palace (Amida Mound) are of a high standard and the landscape works at Bastion 52 have involved some archaeological investigations. However, the absence of archaeologists during other works, such as the adaptive reuse of the upper rooms of the towers, resulted in the loss of important fabric which could have contributed to the knowledge of the property. An ‘illegal’ neighbourhood and other legal infrastructure in the Citadel were demolished to create a public park, without any impact assessment study or investigation, such as to relocate the Roman amphitheatre previously reported in this vicinity, having been undertaken. Likewise, the demolition of poor-quality constructions from the 1930s at the Hz. Suleyman Mosque (Içkale) to develop a landscaped area was undertaken without archaeological surveys being undertaken.

Other projects since inscription have significantly eroded the OUV of the property, including numerous construction, landscaping and infrastructural projects, some reportedly illegal, in the setting of the Ten-Eyed Bridge, resulting in the loss of its OUV. The Tigris Valley Rehabilitation Project, which aimed at canalising the river, was partially implemented before being halted pending the outcomes of a HIA. The State Party has recently implemented other impact assessment processes, such as for the Tram Line project before implementing the project. ICOMOS, in its review of the impact assessment of seven projects (five of which had already been constructed prior to submission) concluded that, whilst the approach taken by the HIA was quite generalist, its conclusions are correct and merit consideration. Planned changes at the Anzele Spring may negatively impact the property’s OUV and, as with all projects that may affect the OUV of the property, they should be subject to a thorough assessment and details of the proposals and their associated impact assessments should be submitted to the World Heritage Centre for review by the Advisory Bodies, prior to any decision on their implementation which may be difficult to reverse.

The mission reports that the consolidation of land parcels of the Hevsel Gardens and the restructuring of the historic city inside the City Walls, with the consequent social impact, has resulted in the severing of the connection between the Gardens and the city they once nurtured, seriously damaging the OUV of the property. The mission cautions that other planned changes, such as the ongoing restructuring of the field patterns facilitating a change in the types of crops grown, will further threaten this key attribute, that urgent action must be taken to prevent further harm and that the relationship between the Hevsel Gardens, the City and its inhabitants should be reinstated.

Implementation of the 2016 Conservation Plan has continued despite the Committee’s repeated requests to the State Party to revert to the 2012 version of the Plan and to halt all projects that may affect the OUV of the property until the recommendations of the requested Reactive Monitoring mission are known and adopted by the Committee (Decisions 43 COM 7B.90 and 44 COM 7B.56).

The mission reports that approximately 40% of Suriçi, the buffer zone component located inside the City Walls, has been demolished since inscription, resulting in further severe erosion of the property’s OUV. This erosion, through the implementation of untested projects, including the occasional invasive restoration of historic monuments, has taken place despite the Committee’s repeated concerns and in the absence of appropriate OUV-focused impact assessment procedures. The assumption that the (Suriçi) buffer zone serves only as morphological setting to protect the visual integrity of the property, and that therefore reconfiguration of the urban fabric, which has evolved over centuries, has no impact on the OUV of the property as long as it retains some semblance of its scale and appearance, is misconstrued. Such an assumption erroneously reduces the OUV of the property to the mere manifestation of the City Walls surrounded by agricultural production areas. Yet, the Statement of Outstanding Universal Value (SOUV) does mention Suriçi as part of ‘the fortified city and its associated landscape that were an important centre and regional capital during the Hellenistic, Roman, Sassanid and Byzantine periods, through the Islamic and Ottoman periods to the present’. The contribution of Suriçi to the OUV of the property should be understood within its urban and landscape settings as such it is stated in the SOUV that: ‘the ability to view the walls within their urban and landscape settings is considered to be contributory, as are the hydrological and natural resources that support the functional and visual qualities of the property’. Consequently, Suriçi, the inner buffer zone, plays a crucial role in fully supporting the integrity of the Diyarbakir City Walls and, hence, the property’s OUV. The recently constructed Vehicle Road and Touristic Tour Route has further disrupted the relationship of Suriçi and the City Wall.

The Reactive Monitoring mission concludes that the management system for the property is no longer effective and needs to be reviewed and re-established. It recommends the 2012 Urban Conservation Plan should be reinstated, as repeatedly requested by the Committee.

The mission concludes that the property is faced with imminent danger due to a significant loss of integrity, cultural significance and supporting historic urban fabric. The OUV of the property remains in danger from lawfully designed developments permitted under existing planning controls. The property faces a specific and ascertained imminent danger, including a serious deterioration of architectural and town-planning coherence and of the urban and rural space. The property is also faced with threats, such as the lack of functioning conservation policy and the threatening effects of town planning, which could have deleterious effects on its inherent characteristics. The vulnerability of the integrity of the property has also been further exacerbated by the earthquake. All these factors combined lead the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies to maintain their view that the property continues to face ascertained and potential danger as defined in Paragraph 179 of the Operational Guidelines, and therefore, recommend its inscription on the List of World Heritage in Danger.