Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan informed, at an event devoted to the victory at the Battle of Manzikert, about his decision to have a presidential palace built in the town of Ahlat—Khlat, in Armenian—on the shores of Lake Van. 

Erdoğan noted that Sultan Alp Arslan of the Seljuk Empire had left for the Battle of Manzikert from Ahlat, and therefore he sees a meaning in constructing a huge Seljuk style tent-palace in Ahlat, with a surface area of 1071 square meters, which will symbolize Alp Arslan’s victory at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, against Byzantium, according to Hürriyet newspaper.