November 14, 2018•Update: November 14, 2018
By Jeyhun Aliyev
ANKARA
Turkey will continue to “actively support the just cause” of Ahiska Turks, the country’s Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.
The ministry's statement marked the 74th anniversary of the deportation of Ahiska Turks, also known as Meskhetian Turks, who were forced to migrate from the Caucasus during the Soviet era.
"On 14 November 1944, almost 100,000 Ahiska Turks were forcefully deported from their homeland in Ahiska, Georgia, to the distant regions of the Soviet Union," the statement said.
It noted that many of Ahiska Turk brothers and sisters lost their lives due to terrible conditions of the deportation, while the survivors had to confront grave challenges at the places they were sent.
"We feel the deep grief of Ahiska Turks and wish Allah’s mercy upon those who lost their lives during the deportation," it added.
The statement said Turkey is closely following the conditions and repatriation process of up to 500,000 Ahiska Turks, scattered across nine countries.
Some 92,307 Ahiska Turks were expelled from Georgia’s Meskheti region by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in 1944, according to the World Ahiska Turks Association.
During nearly 40 days period of deportation from homeland to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, around 13,000 Ahiska Turks lost their lives due to hunger, cold weather and diseases, the association said.
Turkey has voluntarily accepted thousands of Meskhetian Turks upon President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s instruction.
Today, around half a million of Ahiska Turks live in Turkey, Kazakhstan, Russia, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, the U.S. and Ukraine.
