Nino Burjanadze says Georgia not to prioritize Ahiska Turks to be repatriated

Nino Burjanadze says Georgia not to prioritize Ahiska Turks to be repatriated
# 23 June 2007 11:00 (UTC +04:00)
She added that the repatriation process will have a number of overlapping phases.
“The Government will not design special conditions for Ahiska Turks as Georgia is not so well-off now. We don’t promise them anything special. We will do our best to ensure they have normal living conditions,” she noted.
At the first reading, Georgian lawmakers passed legislation authorizing the repatriation of Ahiska Turks who were deported en masse out of Georgia to Central Asia in the 1940s.
As a stipulation of joining the Council of Europe in 1999, Georgia agreed to guarantee the return by 2011 of the Ahiska Turks, an estimated 300,000 of which are scattered in former Soviet republics of Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan and Ukraine.
About 40,000 are believed to be actively seeking to return to their ancestral homelands. The bill provides no financial assistance for resettlement, just allowing the exiled to buy home and land in Georgia to settle.
Those returning must also give up any other citizenship they have, take tests on Georgian language, history and laws.
The new legislation allows the deportees to apply to Georgian embassies for return by January 1, 2009. /APA/
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