Minority Monitor: Would historical justice for Meskhetian Turks ever be restored?
21.09.2023Forcefully deported from their homeland, today’s Georgia, to Central Asia in 1944 and fleeing from Uzbekistan after the 1989 outbreak of violence in the Ferghana Valley, the minority of the Meskhetian Turks is currently living dispersed in nine different countries: Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Russian Federation, Turkey, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and the United States. In 1999, when Georgia became a member of the Council of Europe (CoE), it made a commitment to restore the historical injustice and to return the forcibly evicted Meskhetian Turks to their homeland. However, this commitment has not been fulfilled. By 2011 only about 2000 members of the community succeeded to relocate back to Georgia, while hundreds of thousands are still struggling to get back to their country of origin and seeking support from international institutions, governments, and non-governmental organisations to restore their rights.
Minority Monitor’s new article introduces the case of the Meskhetian Turks and puts forward some issues seen as problematic by the members of the minority. It has been prepared based on materials provided by the Interregional Public Organization of Meskhetian Turks "Vatan" and additional sources.
COMMUNIQUÉ DE PRESSE
- FUEN Congress 2024 will take place in Husum/Hüsem
- What do minorities expect from the European Union? Read the FUEN EU Elections Manifesto!
- Minorities without a mother state come together in Spreewald/Błota
- Annual Conference of the FUEN Education Working Group: Focus on the primary level
- The Forum of the Regions goes to Donostia-San Sebastián
- Challenges of primary education to be discussed at the Education Working Group’s annual meeting in Helsinki
- FUEN TAG held its first online meeting in 2024
- The ongoing war in Ukraine forces the Crimean Tatars to withdraw from EUROPEADA 2024
- 100 days to UEFA EURO 2024: FUEN presented EUROPEADA at BMI’s event
- This is the beginning: minority experts from all over Europe answer FUEN's call