Nevruz, a spring festival traditionally marked in the second half of March and one that has a highly symbolic meaning for Kurds in Turkey and the Middle East, began to be celebrated across various Turkish cities yesterday with colorful celebrations.

In many places in Turkey, people gathered in parks and squares to celebrate the advent of Nevruz. The day of the vernal equinox and the last Wednesday before the equinox are especially significant Kurdish celebrations in Turkey. In eastern Turkey, Nevruz is traditionally celebrated by lighting a bonfire in a neighborhood square. While jumping over the bonfire, people make a wish and expect the wish to come true.

The largest crowd to celebrate Nevruz gathered in İstanbul’s Kazlıçeşme Square yesterday in an event organized by the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP). BDP co-chairman Selahattin Demirtaş addressed thousands of people who gathered in traditional clothes in the square. “There will be no Kurdish problem left in Turkey in 2012. This Nevruz is the Nevruz of freedoms and a solution,” Demirtaş told the crowd.

The BDP’s organizing committee this year has made it “mandatory” to wear clothes in line with the regional ethnic clothing traditions during Nevruz celebrations. The Kurdish phrase “Ji bo jiyanek bi rûmet an azadî an azadî” (Nothing less than freedom for a life of dignity) is the official slogan of this year’s celebrations.

People danced the halay, a folk dance, and chanted slogans, some of which were in favor of the outlawed Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) and its jailed leader, Abdullah Öcalan. Some also carried posters of Öcalan, who is serving a life sentence in a prison on İmralı island. Police took strong security measures in the area before the gathering.

Mersin’s Metropol Square was also the venue of Nevruz celebrations yesterday, which was also attended by BDP parliamentary group deputy chairman Sırrı Sakık. Delivering a speech at the event, Sakık said Turkey was proceeding toward a solution in the country’s long-standing Kurdish problem. “We will solve the Kurdish issue. We have to solve it. We are bound to solve it because Kurds have paid a heavy cost over many years,” he said.

Yesterday’s Nevruz celebrations in Şanlıurfa’s Viranşehir district were not uneventful as police took into custody eight individuals who chanted slogans in favor of the PKK, threw stones at police and set garbage containers on fire.

The picture in Erzurum was in stark contrast to the one in ViranÅŸehir as police officers played games with children during Nevruz celebrations organized by the BDP Erzurum provincial branch. Police officers also distributed balloons and balls to the children participating in the celebrations.

In Ankara, a Nevruz bonfire was lit at the Kolej Kavşağı neighborhood, where Kurdish and Turkish participants sang songs together. Police took intense security measures in the area.

The 1990s were particularly tense during Nevruz, as celebrating the festival was officially banned in Turkey. Since the ban was lifted in 2000, thousands of Kurds in the area have celebrated Nevruz in open squares and on the streets. The PKK has traditionally used Nevruz celebrations as a show of power, as clashes between tire-burning Kurdish teenagers and Turkish police were common in previous years. Nevruz was mostly eventless and peaceful over the past two years, but this year’s celebrations are critical for the PKK as Turkey is in an election year.