Nestled in the mountains of southeastern Turkey’s Tur Abdin region, a new pizzeria opened on June 3 to a crowd of local politicians, government officials, and visitors from as far away as Europe.
Attendees celebrated İzla Pizzeria Arkah and welcomed the return of its owners, Gevriye Cil and Morris Dal, who left Germany a year ago to resettle in their native village of Arkah.
The restaurant — ten months in the making and boasting panoramic views of the region’s rolling landscape — opened amid a surge of local investment that has boosted tourism across Tur Abdin. Nusaybin District Governor and Deputy Mayor Ercan Kayabaşı praised the momentum, noting that the province of Mardin, whose eastern half encompasses Tur Abdin, is steadily becoming a tourism hub.
“New businesses are opening every day,” Kayabaşı said at the grand opening, adding, “Although Nusaybin is a rural neighborhood, such beautiful businesses are opening that I believe it will become one of the most important tourism destination centers in the future.”
Tur Abdin, home to more than 80 villages and historically centered around the Syriac Orthodox church, saw many Assyrians flee in the 1980s and 1990s during Kurdish and Turkish clashes. Families were often forced to choose between leaving or facing violence if they refused to house and feed fighters from either side.
Stability returned in the 2000s, prompting some diaspora families to rebuild homes and invest in the region. Yet recent Turkish threats of a military incursion into northern Syria have unsettled locals once again, raising fears of renewed instability.
1 comment
[…] that had previously fled to Europe began returning and rebuilding homes and businesses, like the pizzeria that opened last June in […]