Meskheti

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has hosted Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze to further boost the two countries' already close ties and cooperation in various fields, including economy and trade.

Turkey on Nov. 14 marked the 77th anniversary of the deportation of Ahıska Turks during the Soviet era.

On Nov. 14, 1944, around 100,000 Ahıska Turks were deported from their ancestral lands in Georgia's Meskheti region to distant parts of the Soviet Union, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

With the support of Turkey's state-run agency, a group of 40 Ahıska Turks living in Kazakhstan returned to their homeland in Georgia's Meskheti region after 75 years.

Turkey's foreign minister on May 23 praised Kazakhstan for its support to Ahıska Turks, also known as Meskhetian Turks.

Turkey will grant citizenship to Meskhetian Turks, also known as Ahıska Turks, who are already U.S. citizens, foreign minister said on March 11.           

Turkey will grant around 50,000 Syrians citizenship, an Interior Ministry official said on Sept. 22, state-run Anadolu Agency has reported.          

Speaking in the southeastern province of Şanlıurfa, Interior Ministry General Directorate of Population and Citizenship Affairs manager Sinan Güner told the agency the process of granting citizenship had already begun.        

Meskhetian Turks living in the United States commemorated their 72 years of exile from their then-Soviet homeland Georgia in front of the White House on Nov. 12. 

At least 300 people from the Turkish-speaking minority in eastern Ukraine, known as the Meskhetian Turks, have fled their houses in Slaviansk following clashes between government forces and pro-Russian separatists, a community representative has said.