DIYARBAKIR, Turkey – The pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) plans to hold several events to mark Newroz, Kurdish New Year, culminating with a million person gathering in the cities of Diyarbakir and Van as the country stands at a crossroads in advance of a referendum on key constitutional amendments.

“We begin Newroz when we launch our visits to Nusaybin on 17 of March,” said Osman Baydemir, HDP spokesperson, speaking in Diyarbakir, also known as Amed in Kurdish. “And our big and popular gathering of millions of our citizens will begin in Amed and Van on the basis of freedom, equality, justice, coexistence, and the expression of feelings.”

Nusaybin, in Mardin province, was the site of a month of deadly clashes between the Turkish army and an armed wing of the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK).

Kurds around the world celebrate the new year at the start of spring, on or around March 20, with people dancing around fire. It is a tradition that goes back thousands of years.

“The fire of Newroz, you rest assured, will make every darkness disappear, and will enlighten. It does not burn anyone,” Baydemir said, asking the Turkish authorities “not to pour water on the fire.”

The burning fire that has to be extinguished, he said, is the fire that burns in the souls of the mothers whose children die in the ongoing clashes.

The PKK and the Turkish state, led by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), launched the peace process, called the solution process, in 2013 when the PKK’s jailed leader, Abdullah Ocalan, called on his armed party to begin negotiations aimed at ending the three-decade long conflict. His call to peace was read in a at Diyarbakir’s Newroz celebration that year.

“In 2013, when the biggest ever Newroz was held, it became a base for the peace process,” Baydemir said. “Yet it all ended, because of one personal and dictatorial desire.”

Though Baydemir did not explicitly name anyone, he was likely referring to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan who has campaigned for an executive presidential system through a number of constitutional reforms to be voted on in a referendum on April 16. HDP strongly opposes the constitutional amendments, arguing that they place too much power in the president’s hands and create an authoritarian state.

The country has also experienced increased violence over the past couple of years, due the renewal of the conflict between the Turkish army and the PKK and the threat of ISIS.

At least 5,000 members of Kurdish and pro-Kurdish parties in Turkey have been arrested, many accused of having ties to the PKK, Baydemir said in December, including the HDP co-chairs Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag.

Yuksekdag lost her parliamentary seat in late February following a Turkish court ruling that convicted her of “terrorism” related charges and the country’s Supreme Court stripped her of membership in the HDP on Thursday.

“The embracement of Newroz is the embracement of all of your municipalities, your mayors, your will who are now in prison,” Baydemir said.

Baydemir said that they have sent invitations to all the Kurdish parties of the Kurdistan Region, other parts of Kurdistan, and around the world.

“Newroz is the colorful flag. Newroz is green, red, and yellow,” he said in reference to the main colours of the historical Kurdish flag, adding that all Kurds share the event.

He said the event also is an opportunity to exchange Kurdish cultural values with other cultures in the Middle East.

Kurds, he said, have suffered a lot for the last 100 years, with Newroz being banned for much of that time.

Some Turkish municipalities banned the event last year, but HDP marked it in Kurdish-majority areas.

Allow us the opportunity to celebrate Newroz “in peace, without a single drop of blood,” Baydemir concluded.