Meskhetian Turks

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Meskhetian Turks are the former Muslim inhabitants of Meskheti (Georgia), along the border with Turkey. They were deported to Central Asia in 1944 by Joseph Stalin and settled within Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. Today they are dispersed over a number of other countries of the former Soviet Union. A majority (more than 80%) of Meskhetian Turks are ethnic Turks (Yerli (Turkish-speaking agriculturalists) and Terekeme (Azerbaijani-speaking pastoralists)) with Kurds and Hamshenis. A minority (about 20%) are descendants of indigenous Georgians who became Muslim in the 17th-18th centuries. The estimated population of Meskhetian Turks is around 300,000. They are known as Ahıska Türkleri (Akhaltsikhe Turks) in Turkey.

In May 1989 a pogrom of Meskhetian Turks occurred in the crowded and poor Fergana Valley, Uzbekistan as a result of growing ethnic tensions during the era of Glasnost. This triggered an evacuation of Meskhetian Turks from Uzbekistan.

In the 1990s, Georgia began to receive Meskhetian settlers, provided that they declared themselves to be of ethnic Georgian origin. Their resettlement created tension among the Armenian population of Samtskhe-Javakheti province. Azerbaijan accepted a number of Meskhetians, but faced problems with refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh, and the government did not accept larger numbers. Turkey, seen as their "homeland" by many Meskhetian Turks themselves, started a program of resettling Meskhetian immigrants in the underprivileged, Kurdish majority eastern regions of the country. This program was for fewer than 200 families, and fell short of expectations. Meskhetians settling in the Krasnodar Krai of Russia became the object of an anti-Turkish sentiment among the local Cossack population.^[1]

Starting in February of 2004, and in cooperation with the governments of Russia and the United States (the State Department's Bureau for Population, Refugees and Migration), the International Organization for Migration started a program to resettle Meskhetian Turks from the Krasnodar Krai to the United States. A total of 21,000 individuals applied to the program, of which the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Citizenship and Immigration Service approved approximately 12,500 for refugee status. As of September 2006 over 10,000 departed to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Atlanta, Georgia; Knoxville, Tennessee; Waukesha, Wisconsin; Kent, Washington; Boise, Idaho; and 60+ other American cities.

[edit] Notes

^ Peter Finn. "Revival of Cossacks Casts Muslim Group Out of Russia to U.S.", The Washington Post, Friday, November 18, 2005, p. A19.

[edit] References

Robert Conquest, The Nation Killers: The Soviet Deportation of Nationalities (London: MacMillan, 1970) (ISBN 0-333-10575-3)

S. Enders Wimbush and Ronald Wixman, "The Meskhetian Turks: A New Voice in Central Asia," Canadian Slavonic Papers 27, Nos. 2 and 3 (Summer and Fall, 1975): 320-340

Alexander Nekrich, The Punished Peoples: The Deportation and Fate of Soviet Minorities at the End of the Second World War (New York: W. W. Norton, 1978) (ISBN 0-393-00068-0).