Press adviser

Actually Çorum recorded an unbelievable pace of development these last five years. At the conference hall of the recently built Anitta Hotel, I addressed an audience of business people, merchants and politicians for two hours. I always say that a new flame is growing in Anatolia. Even in this atmosphere of economic crisis the flame of producing in Çorum is brightly glowing. All members of the audience were very interested in international developments and were eager to listen to whatever was going to happen in the United States with the new Obama administration. Another major topic we discussed was the relations with the European Union.

Turkish officials tend to ignore a vital issue which is when Ankara sneezes Anatolia is catching a bad flu. People think nobody is affected from whatever is happening in Turkey. On the contrary, people are deeply affected and they suffer. Adnan Bey who is a successful architect and former member of parliament asked me the following question: "When are we going to see a time when persons who have selflessly served Turkey will not be punished?"

You cannot differentiate the Anitta hotel from other luxury hotels around the world. The service is impeccable, the rooms large and very well furnished. You can have all amenities here you can ask in a five-star hotel. The hotel’s guest service manager Gönül Hanım is an efficient businessperson. In one hour all 70 of us in the group were perfectly served a delicious meal even though no prior reservations were made. I had to congratulate Gönül Hanım and her team for their achievement. I don’t know any European hotels which can serve 70 people at dinner without having made any reservations.

It is good to see that the Anatolian press is always surviving no matter what kind of crisis they face. When I visited the Manşet newspaper I saw my human-size poster pasted on the walls of the office. It was a very pleasant surprise that Çorum journalists had made such a deep study about my curriculum vitae. The editor-in-chief, Lokman Bey, and reporter Murat were making predictions about my future political career. I decided to appoint one of them my private assistant and the other my press adviser one day.

The inhabitants of Çorum are openly adapting to the life of the 21st century. Even the stores selling leblebi were very much modernized. Most probably 250 kilometers to Ankara this city was very much affected by the cultural legacy of Hattusas, the ancient capital of the Hitites. Unfortunately this time I couldn’t visit the famous Hitite relics. Years ago after I had visited those relics with dear Hasan Yılmaer I’d written an article which made me famous. Hasan Ağabey had told everybody at that time that my article was a scoop. At the time the guide who was taking us around those ancient relics had caught an interesting inscription on a 4,000 year old tablet. The inscription was about a message sent to the capital city saying, "What happened to the two oxen?" Afterward I had written the article saying, "I discovered the document of a Hitite bribe." Who said there cannot be the document of a bribe. Even thousands of years ago there were such documents revealing even then government officials were taking bribes or kickbacks. You can comment on this as you like. I promise you within the next five years I will visit Çorum again.