VZCZCXRO0455
RR RUEHDA
DE RUEHAK #1837/01 2951337
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 211337Z OCT 08
FM AMEMBASSY ANKARA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 7749
INFO RUCPDOC/USDOC WASHDC
RUEATRS/TREASURY DEPT WASHDC
RHEHAAA/NSC WASHDC
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
RUEHIT/AMCONSUL ISTANBUL 4859
RUEHDA/AMCONSUL ADANA 3311

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 ANKARA 001837 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: EINV ECON BTIO PGOV EAID TU
SUBJECT: VAN: A GLIMPSE INTO TURKEY'S REMOTE EAST 
 
¶1. (U) Sensitive but unclassified.  Not for internet 
distribution. 
 
¶2. (SBU) SUMMARY. Two Embassy Econoffs recently 
visited the city of Van, a regional center in 
Turkey's remote east along the border with Iran. 
They found a pleasant lakeside city struggling to 
deal with a huge influx of internal migrants. 
Villagers abandoning the fields for the city have 
caused the population to swell to twice its official 
size of 325,000 and have strained public services to 
the breaking point.  With unofficial unemployment 
figures well over 50 percent, its economic potential 
hampered by an unstable security situation and lack 
of infrastructure, and its future uncertain after a 
string of broken GOT development promises, Van is in 
many ways a microcosm of the larger eastern region. 
Local officials and businessmen noted that they 
regularly receive GOT and EU delegations looking to 
develop the area, but that while progress had been 
made on a small scale, when push came to shove they 
were frequently left standing alone. END SUMMARY. 
 
¶3. (U) Two Embassy Econoffs traveled to the city of 
Van to assess conditions on the ground and to meet 
with local officials and businessmen regarding 
development needs in the region.  They met with: 
Omer Ozcan, Deputy Governor for International 
Affairs; Zahir Kandasoglu, President of the Van 
Chamber of Commerce; Burhan Yenigun, Mayor of Van; 
and Kadri Salaz, President of the Van Young 
Businessman's Association.  They also traveled to 
the Customs border posts in Gurbulak and Kapikoy on 
the Iranian border (report to follow septel). 
 
The City by the Lake 
-------------------- 
 
¶4. (U) Van is a pleasant city located on the shores 
of Lake Van, Turkey's largest lake, roughly fifty 
kilometers west of the Iranian border.  It has been 
continuously occupied for over 3000 years and was 
once the capital of the Urartu civilization.  It 
currently has an official population of around 
350,000, but all local contacts agreed that the true 
figure is somewhere between 650,000 and 750,000 due 
to a large influx of migrants from the surrounding 
villages and provinces, tens of thousands of whom 
were forcibly evacuated from their villages in the 
1990s as part of the GOT's counter-insurgency 
campaign against the PKK.  Van is the capital of Van 
province and also provides some regional 
governmental services to the nearby provinces of 
Agri, Bitlis, Hakkari, Mus, and Siirt. 
 
¶5. (SBU) According to the Chamber of Commerce, the 
province of Van is roughly 90 percent Kurdish in 
ethnicity and 10 percent Turkish, with nearly all of 
the Turks living in the city of Van proper (Comment: 
Official statistics do not provide any ethnic 
breakdown. End comment.) Van is among Turkey's 
poorest and least developed provinces.  Kadri Salaz 
stated that per capita income is only 840 dollars a 
year. 
 
Where Did All These People Come From? What Can We Do 
With Them? 
--------------------------------------------- ------- 
 
¶6. (SBU) All sources agreed that the biggest 
challenge Van faces is the influx of migrants from 
surrounding villages and the economic and social 
impact of their arrival.  Mayor Yenigun noted that a 
city designed for 350,000 people is being asked to 
support more than twice that number, and admitted 
frankly that the necessary resources are not 
available.  He observed that 60 percent of the 
city's residents do not have access to running water 
and that 65 percent lacked access to other basic 
infrastructure such as electricity or clean drinking 
water.  Without assistance either from Ankara or 
foreign sources, he claimed, the city would simply 
not be able to meet the basic needs of its 
residents.  He acknowledged that the EU, GOT, and 
German Development Bank (GDB) had started several 
development initiatives, but described them as being 
 
ANKARA 00001837  002 OF 004 
 
 
"too small" and "underfunded."  At one point he 
stated that "If an assistance program isn't going to 
be in the millions of dollars, then it's not worth 
bringing it here.  Our problems are so large in 
scope that a few hundred thousand dollars here and 
there solve nothing." 
 
¶7. (SBU) Deputy Governor Ozcan stated that the 
challenges presented by internal migration can only 
be overcome with a multi-pronged approach. 
Potential migrants need to be given a reason to stay 
in their villages, he claimed, and therefore rural 
training programs focusing on more effective farming 
and husbandry techniques need to be developed and 
implemented.  With these new skills, rural residents 
can earn enough to sustain a more comfortable 
lifestyle and will have less incentive to leave for 
the city. 
 
¶8. (SBU) For the migrants that have already arrived, 
Ozcan suggested that a new social infrastructure 
needs to be built to integrate them into the city, 
noting that "they have come to the city, but they 
are still not a part of it."  He said that as part 
of its integration efforts the government had 
established several "social centers" in Van in 
cooperation with NGOs and civil society.  The goal 
of these centers is to provide courses for poor 
women to finish (or start) their education and also 
to provide basic social services such as childcare 
so that the women will actually have the time to 
attend classes.  The centers also serve as a 
mechanism to encourage the participation of newly- 
arrived migrants into the social fabric of the city. 
He noted that the centers that have already been 
built have been very effective, but that four to 
eight additional centers are needed. 
 
¶9. (U) The Chamber of Commerce noted that the waves 
of immigrants contribute to an unemployment problem 
that is already grim.  Officially, unemployment is 
around 16 percent - the Chamber stated that the true 
figure is probably closer to 50-55 percent.  They 
also pointed out that Van's unemployment swells even 
further during the harsh winters, when whole sectors 
such as animal husbandry and transportation 
essentially shut down. 
 
¶10. (SBU) Kadri Salaz at the Young Businessmen's 
Association observed that the lack of employment 
opportunities is especially devastating for the 
young, whether they are migrants or native residents 
of Van.  The paucity of available jobs discourages 
the young from bothering to study, he claimed, 
making them even less qualified for jobs that do 
appear.  He also stressed that the region's security 
problems were directly tied to its unemployment 
problem, stating that a young man with a job of any 
sort - even a waiter making minimum wage - would not 
"go to the mountains" (a reference to joining the 
PKK). 
 
Many Development Delegations, Little Development 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
 
¶11. (SBU) Both the Deputy Governor and the President 
of the Chamber noted that they regularly receive 
delegations from Ankara and from foreign aid 
programs, all of whom are interested in developing 
the region.  These visits are so frequent that the 
Governor's Office has drawn up an Action Plan 
outlining the needs and opportunities of the region 
so that development donors can simply pick a program 
and fund it (this program is directed toward meeting 
the needs of internally displaced persons).  The 
Chamber has similarly developed dozens of project 
plans in response to the requests of visiting 
delegations. 
 
¶12. (SBU) Both expressed disappointment, however, at 
the level of funding that has actually arrived, 
stating that it was not proportionate to the level 
of need.  Ozcan said that he had hosted a very 
positive delegation from the UK Embassy several 
months earlier, but that none of the promised aid 
ever materialized, nor had he even been contacted 
 
ANKARA 00001837  003 OF 004 
 
 
again. 
 
¶13. (SBU) While Ozcan restricted his criticism to 
foreign donors, Kandasoglu also questioned the GOT's 
actual commitment to developing the region.  He 
noted that the Chamber had designed a project to 
create a "technology city" intended to take children 
off the street and provide them with a variety of 
services, including Internet access and vocational 
courses that would provide a small wage in order to 
encourage the children to attend.  The center would 
also have had adult education courses focused on 
developing job skills, as well as seminars on 
importing and exporting.  Kandasoglu claimed that 
the project had identified an ideal piece of land 
near the university and had obtained pledges for 
approximately 90 percent of the required ten million 
dollars in funding when the central government 
unexpectedly allocated the land for a different 
purpose.  The pledged funding evaporated and the 
project collapsed.  Although he was still hopeful 
that they would eventually be able to build the 
center, he described the government's actions as 
"unhelpful." 
 
Small Success Stories 
--------------------- 
 
¶14. (SBU) Despite the overall negative picture, both 
Ozcan and Kandasoglu said that good progress had 
been made on a small scale and that funding had been 
secured for a number of promising initiatives.  In 
addition to the successful social centers described 
in para 7, Ozcan noted that a microfinance NGO was 
started to provide small loans to housewives.  Over 
700 people have participated to date, and the 
repayment rate has been 100 percent.  He predicted 
that microfinance should grow rapidly (both in terms 
of need and availability) as more people became 
aware of the opportunity and more NGOs entered into 
the space. 
 
¶15. (SBU) Although the mayor dismissed development 
assistance to date as inadequate, he did mention 
that the German Development Bank has funded three 
projects to the tune of 11 million euro, and the EU 
has allocated 45 million euro for projects in Van 
and three nearby provinces, 30 million of which has 
been spent. Recent news reports indicate that the EU 
will be spending hundreds of millions more in the 
region as part of the accession process, but it is 
not yet clear how much of this will be spent in Van. 
 
¶16. (U) Kandasoglu provided a list of EU-financed 
projects that the Chamber had either begun or 
planned for the near future.  These included: an 
Animal Husbandry Improvement Project (2.9 million 
euro); a Human Resources Center (1 million euro); a 
Honey Production and Packaging Integrated Facility 
(2.9 million euro); an Export Development Project 
(3.5 million euro); a training hotel for hospitality 
services (3.1 million euro); a Small and Medium 
Enterprise Development Center (2 million euro); the 
New Hopes Project for Street Children to Achieve a 
New Life (58,000 euro); and a project to inform 
public institutions and local administrations about 
human rights and democracy (41,000 euro).  As noted, 
the German Development Bank has also been active in 
Van. 
 
¶17. (SBU) Comment: It is a bit disingenuous to 
complain about how funds are never forthcoming and 
then to list out projects worth millions of euro. 
When taken in the context of the vast sums promised 
for development of the east and southeast, however, 
the development assistance delivered to date appears 
small.  The problem of "broken promises" may 
therefore be more about exaggerated expectations - 
the promises have been so extravagant that even 
substantial sums can seem insignificant. End 
comment. 
 
The View from the Outside: Maybe Life Isn't So Bad 
--------------------------------------------- ----- 
 
¶18. (SBU) Van is certainly a poor city, but the 
 
ANKARA 00001837  004 OF 004 
 
 
general impression from driving around is not one of 
a seething hotbed of unemployed migrants suffering 
from absolute impoverishment.  The roads are 
generally in good repair and construction sites dot 
the city, filled with apartment blocks that look 
reasonably comfortable.  The main streets are lined 
with stores of all varieties that were doing brisk 
business (except for the restaurants, which were all 
closed during the day because of Ramadan - a 
reflection of the general religious conservative 
bent of the region).  Even in the poorer suburbs of 
the city where open sewers provided a less-than- 
charming fragrance, the houses looked to be solidly 
constructed and the children appeared reasonably 
well-fed and well-clothed (although they should 
probably have been in school). 
 
¶19. (SBU) The countryside outside of Van is also 
less grim than the migration statistics would lead 
one to believe.  The roads north and east of town 
are in good shape - many of them better than some 
roads in Ankara - and the countryside alternates 
between plowed fields and grazing livestock.  The 
villages are clearly not wealthy, but neither are 
they filled with mud hovels.  The houses, while 
small, are well-constructed and are generally 
connected to electrical lines.  The road leading 
south and west from Van (ironically, toward many of 
the more famous tourist attractions) is in much 
worse shape, but is currently being repaved.  There 
is a permanent jandarma checkpoint on the road east 
of town and one on the road north to Gurbulak, but 
traffic was flowing smoothly through both.  The 
preceding should not be understood to mean that Van 
is in any way a wealthy or developed region.  It is 
undeniably an impoverished part of the country, 
especially when compared to the prosperous west.  If 
its people live merely in low-level misery as 
opposed to abject poverty, then that is still a 
cause for concern.  But the evidence of economic 
activity and new construction provides some hope 
that the truly grim economic and social situation of 
the city and region may eventually improve. 
 
¶20. (SBU) Comment: Van is a city with substantial 
challenges and pressing needs, and one that in many 
ways reflects the problems of the larger eastern 
region.  To meet those needs, significant investment 
in job creation and social integration projects is 
needed - whether from the private sector, the 
government, or foreign donors - and local officials 
and businessmen have plans in hand just waiting for 
the money to appear.  The AKP government has done 
more for rural development, particularly in the 
east, than many of its predecessors, but the need 
for sustained investment and political measures to 
address the Kurdish issue remain acute.  End 
comment. 
 
WILSON