Georgia: Parliament considers Meskhetian Turk repatriation plan

Paul Rimple 6/28/07

After several false starts, Georgia is on the verge of approving a plan that would permit the repatriation of thousands of Meskhetian Turks. Implementation of the plan would mark a major step in Georgia's democratization process, but some opposition politicians warn that the legislation is vague and could lead to unpleasant surprises for the Georgian government.

In 1944, tens of thousands of Meskhetian Turks were deported en masse by Stalin from the Samtskhe-Javakheti region of southwest Georgia to Central Asia for alleged security reasons. In 1989, a similar number fled Uzbekistan after being targeted during an outbreak of violence in the Ferghana Valley. Many have since received refugee status and have immigrated to the West. Those who remain in Central Asia tend to suffer from discrimination, according to international human rights monitoring.

When Georgia joined the Council of Europe (CoE) in 1999, the country committed itself to a 12-year plan to repatriate and integrate the deportees. Until now, though, the government has not made a serious move toward fulfilling that obligation. A draft law to facilitate the group's return to Georgia was approved on the second reading in parliament on June 27 by a vote of 101 to 2. A final vote is scheduled for June 29.

The draft law gives Meskhetian Turks one year (between January 1 and December 31, 2008) to go to Georgian consulates to register their intention to return to Georgia. The government maintains that this policy will allow authorities to determine the number of people willing to return and to plan the pace of the repatriation process. The law does not specify where the returnees are expected to live, and does not provide for financial assistance. The second reading of the bill included a stipulation that returnees must include a property declaration when they register for repatriation.

A representative of the Council of Europe in Tbilisi declined to comment on the draft law, yet in a June 13 interview with the online news service Civil.ge, one of the bill's co-authors indicated that a desire to comply with both Council of Europe and North Atlantic Treaty Organization requirements became "a reason to accelerate the process."

Although tantalizingly close to passage, some experts believe the repatriation bill, due to its sensitive nature, could still stumble over disagreement on details. Considerable debate, for example, still surrounds the question of how many Meskhetian Turks might opt to return to Georgia.

European Center for Minority Issues (ECMI) Regional Representative Tom Trier believes the one-year time limit could make for inaccurate numbers if many Meskhetian Turks opt to register just to cover themselves, leaving the real decision for later. That could leave the government scrambling for an adequate response. For parliamentarian Zviad Dzidziguri of the Conservative Party, which has opposed the bill, the lack of clarity on this count poses a threat to national security. "[T]his is treacherous because the bill doesn't envisage possible complications if, say, 100,000 repatriates want Georgian citizenship," he said on Imedi television on June 14.

Fellow Conservative Party parliamentarian Kakha Kuklava worries that the return of Meskhetian Turks to Samtskhe-Javakheti, a predominantly ethnic Armenian region that borders on Turkey, risks triggering a fresh outbreak of regional separatism. Local tensions ran high in the early 1990s when Meskhetian Turks who identified themselves as ethnic Georgians returned to the region.

"We have a bad experience with minorities in Georgia," said Kuklava. "After independence, Russia used our minorities against us [in the breakaway pro-Russia regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia] and they plan to make another conflict in Javakheti."

That interpretation of Russia's role is common among politicians and ordinary residents alike. Kukava, however, also charges that Turkey and pan-Turkic organizations could help Meskhetian Turks claim independence "in three to five years" if they are invited to return. Such a scenario is based on the assumption that Meskhetian Turks are, in fact, ethnic Turks. The matter of the Meskhetians Turkishness has been a charged debate for Georgians, many of whom remember Ottoman Turkey's centuries-long domination of western and southwestern Georgia. Official Georgian accounts claim that Meskhetians are Georgians who converted to Islam during Ottoman Turkey's control of Samtskhe-Javakheti. These accounts do not refer to the group as "Turks." The counter-argument maintained by many deportees is that their ancestors were Turks who settled in the Samtskhe-Javekheti region in the 5th century. The term, "Meskhetian Turk" was used by Soviet officials to describe the community, though it is rarely used by group members themselves, who usually refer to themselves as "Ashika" or "Akhaltsikhe" Turks, a reference to the region's capital city.

The ECMI's Trier calls the ethnicity debate "irrelevant" to the current repatriation issue. The Conservative Party's Kakha Kukava, however, has proposed that parliament establish a panel of experts to determine whether "we are dealing with Turkish, Tatar and Kurdish ethnic groups who were aggressively disposed towards the Georgian state from the start," Imedi Television reported the politician as saying.

Meanwhile, in the deportees' homeland itself, feelings are mixed. Former Samstkhe-Javakheti Deputy Governor Armen Armirkhanian commented that the local Armenian population is not particularly eager to live with a people with whom they share many historical differences, yet noted that the feeling is not universal.

In the end, an influx of fresh residents to one of Georgia's most economically depressed regions may prove the biggest challenge, added Armirikhanian. "I can't say what kind of problems will emerge as a result of this decision, but competing for work in an area with very little opportunities will be a real dilemma," he said.

Editor's Note: Paul Rimple is a freelance reporter based in Tbilisi.

Posted June 28, 2007 © Eurasianet