The Meskhetian Turks is a population, which was deported to Central Asia, along
with seven other ethnic groups in the Soviet Union during World War II. Whilst
other deported people, Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Karachais and Kalmyks were
rehabilitated after Stalin’s death and allowed to resettle in their pre-deportation
territories, three groups were not permitted to return. These included the Crimean
Tatars, who were only to be rehabilitated with the demise of the Soviet Union,
and have subsequently returned in significant numbers to Crimea in Ukraine over
the past 15 years. Another group, the Volga Germans, originally deported from
the Soviet Volga German Republic, have largely emigrated to Germany in the
post Soviet Era, and do not have territorial aspirations in the Volga region. Hence,
the Meskhetian Turks are the last of the 8 deported peoples, for whom
rehabilitation and resettlement remains unresolved.
As the last of Stalin’s deported people, the Meskhetian Turks today live dispersed
throughout several countries: Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. Meskhetian Turks face very
different living conditions in their countries of settlement, ranging from
statelessness and discrimination in southern Russia, to higher levels of socioeconomic
integration, e.g. in Ukraine, Azerbaijan or in Central Asia. The
Meskhetian Turks were originally deported from Georgia, which has since
become an independent state, but opposes repatriation of Meskhetian Turks and
has effectively blocked efforts to implement the repatriation plans pledged by
Meskhetian Turk’s organizations and the international community.
Relatively little is known about the current situation of the Meskhetian Turks.
This working paper attempts to give an overview of the main aspects of the
‘Meskhetian Turkish question’, including their history, the population group’s
current socio-economic situation, their organization and civic life, and the
international dimension of the deportation and resettlement issue. The paper also
7
seeks to identify areas for further research that have not been explored in-depth,
but which are crucial for future attempts to address the issue coherently in order to
find durable solutions to the issue of return.
This working paper also marks the launch a large-scale research project,
“Between Integration and Resettlement: The Meskhetian Turks”, which has been
made possible through generous support of the Volkswagen Stiftung, to be carried
out by the European Centre for Minority Issues from July 2004 to February 2006.

The project aims to produce a comprehensive and comparative cross-border study
of today’s Meskhetian Turk communities, and strives to develop an alternative
discourse to the framework maintained by international actors addressing the
problems of the Meskhetian Turks, which is based on an a priori assumption that
Meskhetian Turks desire to return to their region of origin. The project, through
multi-disciplinary research in the eight above countries, seeks to grasp the
complexity of the subject by obtaining a thorough understanding of Meskhetian
Turkish identity, migration processes, concepts of ‘home’ and social organization,
which can provide the basis for new approaches to find durable solutions to the
problems of the Meskhetian Turks.

The findings of the project are envisaged to form a scholarly basis for future
national and international endeavors to find durable solutions to the long-lasting
problems faced by this disadvantaged population group. The project will yield an
authoritative research volume to be published in late 2006.
This paper will briefly examine the history of the people and the events that have
largely shaped the present fate of the population group in question. The first
section will provide brief country-specific accounts of the conditions Meskhetian
Turks are facing in their countries of residence. The second chapter gives an
account of Meskhetian Turks’ organizations, including their diverse aspirations
and arguments on identity. The third chapter discusses the international process
8
and the most prominent international attempts to address the issue, including a
particular examination of the repatriation issue. The fourth chapter provides a
brief review of the existing literature, and explores the deficiencies of data and
material available on the subject at present. The final chapter opens a discussion
of the discourses on the repatriation issue and identifies their shortfalls, while
identifying new approaches for the research to be conducted under the ECMI
research project on Meskhetian Turks.