In a statement dated Nov. 14, Türkiye’s Foreign Ministry reaffirmed support for Ahıska Turks and efforts for their return to their ancestral homeland, 82 years after their deportation from Georgia.
The ministry said the Nov. 14, 1944, deportation uprooted about 100,000 Ahıska Turks from Georgia’s Ahıska region and sent them to remote areas of the Soviet Union. Thousands died, it said.
Survivors carried the community’s language and cultural practices through severe hardship and on to later generations, according to the ministry. It said it would continue tracking return efforts and supporting the community.
