Possessed by the fear of an increase in its Kurdish population, the Turkish state is employing various methods to change the demographic structure in the Kurdish region, in the south-eastern part of the country.

The city of Bitlis, which is among the main targets of the Turkish state in this sense, is seeing yet another plan implemented by the government.

The Housing Development Administration of Turkey (TOKİ) has built 500 houses in the Ahlat district of Bitlis in the past year, and settled thousands of Turkish migrants in this settlement.

In the Ahlat district of Bitlis, the AKP-MHP government built 200 houses and settled 2,500 Meskhetian Turks in 2022. Another 300 houses are being constructed in the district this year with the intention of having another 3,000 Meskhetian Turks settled there. A total of 5,500 foreigners will have been moved to the district by the end of the year.

Not contented with that, the AKP government will build a thousand more houses in Ahlat. The construction will start this year and nearly 15,000 people will be settled here.  

Three thousand Meskhetian Turks brought in from Ukraine were settled in Ahlat and the district of Üzümlü in Erzincan in 2016 and 2017.

Between 2015 and 2023, the AKP government settled over 25 thousand foreign-national Turkish migrants in Ahlat. The expenses of all the settlements built for them are covered by the government itself.

A large number of migrants had been settled in various parts of Northern Kurdistan before, including the Adilcevaz district of Bitlis, Erciş and Özalp districts of Van and Tutak district of Ağrı.