İlker Girit
October 17, 2017•Update: October 17, 2017
By Omer Aydin
STRASBOURG
Over a 100,000 Ahiska Turks and their descendants whose families were forced to migrate from the Caucasus during the Soviet era are still demanding to return home, a campaigner has told Anadolu Agency.
Speaking in Strasbourg this week, the World Ahiska Turks Association (DATUB) Europe representative Burhan Ozkosar said Georgia had not kept a commitment made in the Council of Europe to allow 126,000 Ahiska Turks to return their lands.
Ahiska Turks, also known as Meskhetian Turks, were expelled from the Meskheti region of Georgia by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in 1944.
DATUB was established in 2010 as an umbrella organization to defend the rights of Ahiska Turks who are today living across nine countries.
Although Georgia had agreed to allow all Ahiska Turks to return when it became a member of the Council of Europe in April 1999, Ozkosar said that only around 8,000 of these people had been given permission to come home.
Ozkosar, who also claimed the Georgian government deliberately slowed down the application process, called on Council of Europe officials to take action.
As part of the returning plan, only 494 Ahiska Turks have received Georgian citizenship to date, Ozkosar added.
Turkey, meanwhile, has voluntarily accepted thousands of Ahiska Turks and granted citizenship to 585 of those who arrived from December 2015.
According to DATUB, nearly 25,000 Ahiska Turks live in Turkey.
Ahiska Turks faced discrimination and human rights abuses before and after the Soviet deportation. Those who migrated to Ukraine in 1990 settled in shantytowns used by seasonal workers.
The majority of Meskhetian Turks in Ukraine fled their homes during the 2014 conflict between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country.
