Ağrı (Turkish pronunciation: [ɑːɾɯ]; Kurdish: Agirî;[1] Armenian: Քարբեր, romanized: Karber[2]) is a city in eastern Turkey, near the border with Iran.

[6] Ağrı has old settlements such as Doğubeyazıt and Patnos, whose origins date back to the Middle Ages and the Islamic period.

Shah Ismail founded the Safavid state in 1501 and conquered Ağrı and its surroundings in his eastern Anatolian campaign in 1503.

In the 17th century, the famous Kurdish astronomer, geographer, philosopher and Islamic scholar Ehmede Xani came to this city.

When the Russians retreated, most of the local Armenians left with them to build Yeni Beyazıt (now Gavar in Armenia) on the shores of Lake Sevan.

[7] The current town center was founded around 1860 by a group of Armenian merchants from Bitlis with the name Karakilise (قره‌کلیسا, lit.

'the black church') that became known to the local population as Karakise, and this version was turned officially to Karaköse at the beginning of the Republican era.

[citation needed] In the medieval period, the district's administrative centre was located at Alashkert, once an important town.

In 1895 H. F. B. Lynch stayed in Karakilise and wrote that it had between 1500 and 2000 inhabitants, was nearly two-thirds Armenian, and that a barracks for a locally recruited Kurdish Hamidiye regiment had been recently located in the town.

The local MP Fatma Salman Kotan has written of the need to erode the patriarchal nature of society in the region.