One hundred and two families of Meskhetian Turks from Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine are awaiting the next round of resettlement to Erzincan province in northeastern Turkey in October.
The families were granted asylum and afterwards Turkish citizenship by order of president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in April 2015.
The Turkish-speaking ethnic minority is fleeing military conflict between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian government forces. According to DATÜB, the World Union of Meskhetian Turks, 677 families, totaling nearly 3,000 people, wish to move to Turkey. The resettlement began last December when the first group of 327 people arrived in Erzincan from Slovyansk.
Naim Shakhbazov, a Meskhetian Turk from the village of Ulakly in Donetsk region, is excited about upcoming move. Although his village wasn’t affected by war, he told Kyiv Post that they didn’t feel safe anymore because they could hear shelling and gunfire.
“We are ready to go to our ancestral homeland,” said Shakhbazov.
Meskhetian Turks, also known as Ahiska Turks, originally come from the Meskheti region in Georgia. In 1944, like many other ethnic minorities, they were deported from their homeland to Central Asia, mainly to Uzbekistan. In 1989 many Meskhetian Turks moved to Ukraine, and until recently their community comprised of approximately 10,000 people.
Naim Shakhbazov’s nephew, Sabir, moved to Erzincan in September. He said that 75 out of 90 Meskhetian Turk families in Ulakly are waiting for resettlement.
All of the families get fully furnished apartments in Üzümlü district, the head of the district’s administration Fatih Acar told Turkish news agency Anadolu. In addition, local authorities help them with employment, and by the next summer they are promised Turkish citizenship.
This is not the first time Turkey has accepted people from war-torn areas and offered them citizenship.
In July, Erdoğan announced plans to grant citizenship to 300,000 wealthy and skilled Syrian refugees living in Turkey. However, the initiative sparked a huge negative response among Turks.
The Turkish opposition argued that Erdoğan was trying to increase his electorate by pledging citizenship to refugees ahead of a referendum to strengthen his constitutional power.
As for the Meskhetian Turks from Ukraine, they mostly support Erdoğan.
“Unlike Ukraine, the Turkish government has always helped us,” said Shakhbazov.
