Niyazi Koyuncu, brother of Black Sea singer Kazım Koyuncu who lost his life after battling with cancer, was criticized by some nationalist circles for his concert at Newroz celebrations in Diyarbakır on March 21.
Koyuncu recieved abusing messages in his twitter account. The Northern Turkey Cultural Centre expressed in a written statement its solidarity with Koyuncu, underlining that "Art and artists should stand with peace in the name of humanity".

The artists added that "Niyazi Koyuncu represented our word even though we didn't need to speak the same language as Kurdish people...We perform at weddings, celebrations. We also celebrate Kurdish people's Newroz. We, the people of North, have never ignored any culture or language so far. We don't speak the same language but our tears are in common. We don't want to be invited to funerals, we prefer weddings. Therefore, we dedicated our word to peace, as always".

The statement was signed by Mehmet Gümüş, Fuat Saka, Efkan Şeşen, Yaşar Kurt, Gökhan Birben, İbrahim Karaca, Elif Ergezen, Filiz Gazi, Seyhan Kaya, Belma Baş, Okşan Dede, Resul Dindar, Marsis, Erdal Bayrakoğlu, Karmate, Hürdağ Aydın, Ayla Yılmaz, Ayşenur Kolivar, Metin Yılmaz, Selçuk Balcı, Aydoğan Topal, Bayar Şahin, Uğur Sönmez, Grup Helesa, Elin Can Vayiç, Ferda Sönmez, Budak Akalın, Haldun Açıksözlü.

Niyazi's brother, Kazım Koyuncu, was a folk-rock singer and a Laz language activist. He died of cancer in 2005.