Juan Karlos Izagirre is a young doctor. Over the years he has been working in various countries, especially Africa. And then in 2011 he was elected mayor of a city like Donostia (San Sebastian), in the Basque Country. Donostia is a city of around 200 thousands people, in the Gipuzkoa Province. The 2011 elections were something much peculiar, as the Spanish Court virtually prevented most of the izquierda abertzale (Nationalist Left) from running in the elections.

The elections, in June 2011, took place after eight months from ETA new ceasefire (on 5 September 2010). On 20 October 2011 ETA (only four months after the elections) announced a "definitive cessation of its armed activity".
We met mayor Izagirre in his office, where he is busy preparing the conference of Mayors for Peace which will take place on 10 and 11 October, with the participation of mayors from all over the world, included Diyarbakir and Rojava.

So, mayor let's begin from here: from a doctor in Africa to mayor of Donostia and in suche an historic moment.
Let me tell you that what I am witnessing here is still a sort of schizofrenia. I decided to run as mayor because there was a totally antidemocratic situation: a wide part of the Basque population cannot run in the elections because of the illegalization of the Abertzale Left, and there are 40 thousand people who cannot be in the list of candidates because they are considered “contaminated” by the Spanish justice. I was not considered “contaminated” so I accepted to be a candidate. I am the coalition Bildu candidate and as it resulted I was elected. This obviously gave me two different feelings: on one side euphoria and enthusiasm for the results, on the other hand I feel the weight of this responsibility. But I am committed to this work and I try to do it as best as I can.

A city like Donostia has many problems, and even more now with the economic crisis.
Our priorities are clearly the people and public services. And in this we try to move. The council was not too bad economically speaking, it did not have much debts. On the other hand we are part of a process towards the building of a just and lasting peace and despite the obstacles we are working to give our contribution to it.

In this sense, the October conference is a contribution to peace.
Definitively. Peace continues to be one of the most cherished values on the international stage and yet also one of the scarcest. It is a basic right of peoples whose identity is not recognised. Across the world, war and conflict continue to rage ever more fiercely. To make matters worse, long-running conflicts, many of which began in the mid- twentieth century, have become endemic, with no solution being achieved. In many other cases, resolution of the conflict has come only in fits and starts, to the exasperation of the local population. The right to peace continues to be an unfulfilled aspiration of many thousands of men and women around the globe.
Conflicts do not end with the signing of peace agreements between leaders from the region or other countries. While peace agreements are an essential step, it takes much more to secure the process. Achieving a fair and lasting peace requires proper implementation of the agreements and consolidation on the ground. Peace requires a transformation of the society afflicted by violence. Peace requires recognising that society’s right to live in justice and freedom. And in this process, the local domain and the institutions closest to the citizen –such as local government– have a crucial role to play.

The city of Donostia, which will be the European Cultural Capital in 2016, has been involved in a number of initiatives for peace in the Basque Country.
Yes, I will mention here the moves towards dialogue and reconciliation, the recognition of all victims and the establishment of the democratic bases for future coexistence. The recommendations of the Social Forum for Peace on advancing the peace process were recently announced, also in the Aiete palace. The city of Donostia-San Sebastian continues to be fully committed to peace and human rights.
It is for this that we have decided to organise an international conference as part of  the city's contribution to tackling the immense challenge of building peace, in this case from the local domain. The conference is also intended to inspire the work currently being carried out from the local domain in the Basque peace process. The aim is to draw on the diversity of international experiences at local level to advance towards fulfilling the right to peace of peoples.

* This article is published in Turkish on Ozgur Gundem