Homeless Primrose

"Homeless Primrose" is written in large letters at the back of one lorry. The Homeless Primrose makes a daily trip on these roads. From Gevaş, on the road to Kuskunkıran, we enter the Balaban Gendarmerie station, with our Primrose. We are travelling in an official car. We submit our identities to the Gendarmes. They take our pictures. They search our car. Our friends, the public servants get angry. But, the Gendarmes are just doing their job.

I admit our car was lightly searched. But the poor Primrose was not so lucky. Every vehicle travelling through the pass is thoroughly searched. It is impossible to get out of the pass within two hours. Some people say they have to wait six hours. During the search we had the opportunity to talk to other passengers. "We do not deserve this behaviour," they said. Passengers were also angry with the so-called Kurdish secessionists. "We are going to punish them with our bare hands. We never condoned the demonstrations when the prime minister visited the region," they blurt out passionately.

Whether of Kurdish or Turkish origin, everyone reacted strongly about those who turned Van and its surrounding area into hell, during Erdoğan’s visit. They also had strong reactions toward the government and security forces. They think they did almost nothing to control the demonstrations. For the record, the inhabitants of Van are also very angry at those who forced businesses to close during the visit. "We have been oppressed," they said.

I was invited to speak at a meeting of the Bitlis Young Businessmen Association, or BİGİAD. The Bitlis Cultural Center was full. They organized the meeting perfectly. The subject of the meeting was, "The World and Turkey on the threshold of the Recent Global Crisis: Economic, Financial and Social Developments." The president of BİGİAD, Bilal Dağdağan, delivered a very good speech. "In this region the main thing is to open new businesses, create new jobs and open up to the outside world," he said. In recent years all businessmen from Bitlis who do business out of their homeland, come back to invest here. Examples of this are the Eren University and the Kiler Group.

Questions by young businessmen and their eagerness to participate in debates showed how decisive they are. I was supposed to speak for half an hour. But when I looked at my watch, I realized it had been two hours. It made me happy to see the rising awareness of the importance of economic development there.

In Tatvan there is a new project called Nimrod, or Nemrud. If the government gives it support, it will mean a big transformation of the region. The project consists of mountain, history and nature tourism. You will be able to ski and swim in the thermal lake in the Nimrod Crater, 1,200 meters high. Forty-five kilometers ahead of there is the Seljuk monuments and tombs. There are historical relics everywhere in Bitlis.

I detected a slight pessimism among Van businessmen. The atmosphere in Bitlis was better. It seemed the eagerness for production had diminished in the region, although Turkey’s main problem is in production. I want to stress the core of the problem is economic. We have to have development in the region. We have to increase employment. Let us say we shall not collect taxes for five years in the region and create a master plan to steer the economy, then watch the results. Sometimes uncoordinated struggles for development cause us to make wrong decisions. But the new project, "Development Agencies," will potentially create confusion in the region.

This region and its people belong to us. Nobody should become depressed and think somberly. We are going to do everything in our power to develop the region.