WHAT’S IN IT FOR THE MESKHETIAN TURKS?
By M. Alkhazashvili
Translated by Diana Dundua

The Messenger, Georgia
June 15 2007

The ruling party has drafted yet another bill to take up the issue
of the repatriation of the Meskhetian Turks. In 1999, in order to be
accepted into the Council of Europe, they developed a 12-year program
to repatriate the group including promises to have a law on the books
by 2001.

A bill has been considered at various times in the past including in
2003 under Shevardnadze’s presidency, but it appears there just might
be the political will to pass one this time with the incentive of NATO
membership driving the process. The co-author of the bill MP Pavle
Kublashvili, told Civil Georgia on June 13 that Georgia’s NATO bid
"has become a reason to accelerate the process".

In November 1944, Stalin rounded up and deported approximately 120 000
‘minorities’ in the Samtskhe-Javakheti province, mostly Meskhetian
Turks (but also ethnic Kurds and Muslim Armenians known as Khemshils)
and shipped them to Central Asia. About 15 000 reportedly died of
starvation and cold along the way. Some analysts speculate he didn’t
trust the group despite the fact that about 27 000 Meskhetian Turks
died in the Red Army fighting the Nazi regime. Many were uprooted
again in 1989, when violence erupted in Uzbekistan; this time they
spread throughout Russia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Turkey.

Why Georgia is dragging its feet in their repatriation has also
been a topic of debate. The government itself has claimed that with
200 000 IDPs from Abkhazia and South Ossetia, they’re not in a good
position to handle another group of refugees. Some officials claim
that their return could also further destabilize Georgia’s territorial
integrity. In fact, the Conservative Party’s criticism is that the
group will pose a "separatist threat".

But others have claimed that the hesitancy stems from latent
‘Turkophobia’. Azeri historian and NGO activist Arif Yunusov who has
written extensively on the Meskhetian question says, "There is an
idea in Georgia that once they open the doors, the country will be
overrun with Turks."

There is also debate about whether Meskhetian Turks are really
ethnic Georgians or not. Some say they are ethnic Georgians who
simply converted to Islam; others say they entered the scene with
the expansion of the Ottoman Empire.

Though the draft law appears to be a positive development, there are
some problems. Those who wish to return to Georgia must provide Soviet
documentation that they were deported in 1944; the bill allows the
interior and justice ministries to be involved with the veto of any
applicants based on undetermined criteria; the law doesn’t establish
any criteria for eligibility at all; and there is no financial
assistance being offered to the returnees.

There is also concern about where the IDPs would be re-located with
some insisting they should return to the Samtskhe-Javakheti province
from which they came while others claim there isn’t enough room there
and they should be distributed throughout Georgia. Some analysts
think the real reason the government wants broader distribution is
because the return of the Meskhetian Turks to the predominantly
ethnic-Armenian populated area would cause more tensions in this
already sensitive relationship.

More than likely, the bill will pass so Georgia can check one more
thing off their list of commitments to the Council of Europe and
NATO. But with no help financially, and upon return being located to
different areas throughout the country and faced with limited economic
opportunities (if they manage to pass through the bureaucratic red
tape and apparent subjectivity of the whole process) why would the
group want to return to Georgia?