The eastern regions, since the first days Ottoman conquered there had been a special case. They were never fully integrated, were always source turmoil and their allegiances changed between Safavids and Ottomans.
The infrastructure was different, the geography was different...and most importantly PEOPLE were different(not just ethno-religiously). What I am saying is that, those regions were integrated as "client" mini-rulers, tribal leaders that ruled over thousands of families. These could be Kurdish, Turkmen, and they could also be Alevis which leaned more towards Iran. The socio-economic situation there was significantly different from typical farmers of the western bits of the empire. There were a lot of nomads and dynasties in this region. Ottoman control over the area was weaker and relations with these clients were crucial, because the tribal leader had more power over the population there than the sultan in Constantinople.
Mind you, this had come all the way to modern Turkey. Even today, Turkish state, a midst the Kurdish independence issue, controls the area through tribal leaders and their paramilitaries. Since the time of Atatürk the region was tried to be indoctrinated, brain-washed, change their "feudal" life style, attacked and even massacred. The area had always been special.
You can easily see this in the 19th century for when most of the core of empire(western anatolia and balkans) were going through social transformation, these areas were insisting in their old life-styles. There had been MANY incidents when nomads and forces of Ottomans fought each other. Ottomans were always trying to force-settle nomads(for modernization) for proper taxation and increased cultivation(we even have a lot of folk songs written by these nomads about their heroism against the state).
For example, when the land-reforms were being introduced(1856) and "old land regime" was being abolished, Ottoman bureaucrats were registering lands in the names of small land-holders/peasants and some big land-owners. In the eastern region, people would register themselves in the name of their tribal leader for there was no rule of law of Ottomans there. Local laws were what mattered. This is still the source of inequality between east-west Turkey for there a lot more (feudalistic)landowners in the east...