According to Today’s Zaman newspaper the head of the cultural and social department of Shishli’s Regional Administration in Istanbul got a statement with more than 3,000 signatures in support of renaming the Ergenekon Avenue in the center of Istanbul to Hrant Dink Street.
The document consists of 160 pages and was handed to the Administration’s representative by the Pro-Kurdish Peoples Democratic Party (HDP) of Turkey. According to the Statement the local authorities are required to change chauvinistic, racist and nationalistic street names and return their primordial Greek and Armenian names instead.
It is notable that the initiators observe the following tendency on the part of the Turkish authorities: the areas and streets inhabited by ethnic minorities are mainly called by the names of Turkish nationalists and some other national titles. In the Turkic mythology, Ergenekon, which is also the name of the avenue demanded to be renamed after Hrant Dink, means the cradle of the Turks.