I found Gultan Kisanak, the mayor of Diyarbakir, the effective capital of Kurdish aspirations for autonomy within Turkey, watering roses on the terrace outside her office. There was not a cloud in the sky on a mild late-fall day. But her mood was grim. Kisanak is a member of the Kurdish-dominated Peoples’ Democratic Party, or H.D.P., which took over 70 percent of the vote in Diyarbakir but saw its national vote share fall to 10.7 percent from 13.1 percent in June as Erdogan’s fear tactics worked. “ISIS became such a large force thanks to an open-door policy from Ankara,” she told me. “Militants come and go. ISIS has been delegated to fight a proxy war against Kurdish Rojava, and all kinds of support has been given to them.”
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