Kurdish physician, politician and author Tarık Ziya Ekinci was born in 1925 in Licê in the province of Amed. He died on Thursday at the age of 99 in Istanbul, the Bosporus metropolis' medical association announced.

After high school, he studied medicine in Istanbul and at the University of Paris. After graduating in 1949, he worked as a doctor in Licê, Amed and Istanbul. In 1957, he completed his specialist training in internal medicine and settled back in Amed. For several years, he was chair of the local medical associations there and in the provinces of Mêrdîn (Mardin) and Sêrt (Siirt). He published various medical articles and organized various medical congresses. Until his death, he was also an honorary member of the Turkish Medical Association (TTB).

In addition to medicine, Tarık Ziya Ekinci was also active in politics. He campaigned for a democratic solution to the Kurdish question. From 1957 to 1960, he was a member of the Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi (CHP). He then moved to the Türkiye İşçi Partisi (Workers' Party of Turkey, TIP). He co-founded the Socialist Cultural Association (Sosyalist Kültür Derneği) and was the chair of the Amed section.

From 1965 to 1969, Ekinci was a TIP representative for Amed in the Turkish parliament. Within the TIP he held several positions and was also the general secretary. In parliament, he was the TIP parliamentary group leader. On September 16, 1967, Kurdish members of the party denounced the imbalance between West and East in the country. This took place in the form of the so-called "Eastern Meetings". These meetings laid the foundation for the founding of the Devrimci Doğu Kültür Ocakları (Revolutionary Cultural Associations of the East, DDKO). Tarık Ziya Ekinci was actively involved in the founding of the DDKO.

After the military coup in Turkey on March 12, 1971, Tarık Ziya Ekinci was sentenced to three years in prison for Kurdish and communist propaganda under Article 142 of the Turkish Penal Code, of which he served two years in Amed. Behind prison walls, he devoted himself to "left-wing socialist education" among young people; he continued this commitment even after his release. After the military coup in September 1980, he was arrested five times. In 1982, he fled to France, where he worked as a doctor until 1989. On June 30, 1989, he returned to Turkey, served the remainder of his sentence and settled in Istanbul. Ekinci was also the founder of the organization Democratic Reconciliation and Initiative for the Solution of the Kurdish Question (DEMOS) and the initiator of numerous international appeals for an end to the war in Kurdistan.

Tarık Ziya Ekinci wrote numerous books on the Kurdistan question and ways to solve it, as well as other conflicts that are associated with the democratic and human rights deficit in Turkey. He also wrote in several newspapers and magazines of the socialist camp. He was a member of the academic advisory board of the "Political Academy" of the Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), which was founded as the successor to the previously banned Democratic Society Party (DTP) and is now called the Democratic Regions Party (DBP). He was also a member of the advisory board of the HDP (Democratic Party of the Peoples).

Tarık Ziya Ekinci will be commemorated with a funeral ceremony in Istanbul. Afterward, he will be sent to Amed, where he will be buried in his hometown of Licê.