Paul Goble
Staunton, Dec. 24 – Over the last 20 years, Turkey has granted citizenship to almost 96,000 Meskhetian Turks, making that country the most important center of the 115,000 members of that nationality deported by Stalin in 1944 and their descendants and who have faced serious obstacles in returning to their homeland in Georgia.
Before 2002, Turkey had granted fewer than 5,000 Meskhetian Turks citizenship; and so its announcement now that it has done that for 95,845 likely marks the end of their difficult odyssey. Ankara says that many of them live compactly in places across Turkey (turantoday.com/2021/12/ahiska-uighurs-turkey.html).
(For background on this community which became a nation as a result of deportation, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2018/11/74-years-ago-today-stalin-deported.html. For discussions of other Meskhetian centers, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/10/astrakhan-where-even-recently-arrived.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/09/meskhetian-turk-community-in-kbr.html.)
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