Putin has Given Assad Asylum But is Unlikely to Allow Syria’s Circassians to Return Home

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Dec. 9 – Moscow has given overthrown Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad political asylum, but it seems unlikely that the Russian government will allow more of Syria’s estimated 50,000 Circassians to return to their homeland in the North Caucasus, despite the opportunities Assad’s ouster has given them for leaving.
    Prior to 2011, Syria had an estimated 200,000 Circassians; but during the civil war there, roughly half of them fled abroad. But of those, only around 2,000 were able to return to their homelands in the North Caucasus from which their ancestors were deported by the Russian Empire in an act of genocide.
    Given the uncertainties and instability following the departure of Assad, many  more will want to leave; but they are likely to be blocked by Moscow’s increasingly hostile attitude toward the return of compatriots abroad like the Circassians who do not speak Russian (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/02/moscows-compatriots-program-allowing.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/02/moscow-tightening-screws-on-circassians.html).
    Nonetheless, many are likely to try and both Circassian organizaations and the governments of the three Circassian republics – Karachay-Cherkessia, Kabadino-Balkaria and Adygeya – may very well help them given labor shortages and a history of allowing more Circassians in thanMoscow likes (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/06/circassians-appear-to-be-returning-to.html).
    That could easily create a new conflict situation in the North Caucasus and help mobilize the seven million Circassians against Moscow which seems always ready to help the enemies and oppressors of that nation but not members of a group that the Russian government itself has been fighting for three centuries.
    Two years ago, Memorial released a report on the Circassians of Syria and their plight. For the report, see memohrc.org/ru/announcements/desyat-strashnyh-let-narusheniya-prav-cheloveka-i-gumanitarnogo-prava-vo-vremya-voyny. For a discussion of that study, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/04/allowing-circassians-to-return-from.html.