Burjanadze: Georgia not Ready to Repatriate Meskhetian Turks

Georgian Parliamentary Chairperson Nino Burjanadze said on October 25 that Georgia is not yet ready to repatriate Meskhetian Turks, despite the country’s commitment undertaken by Georgia upon its accession to the Council of Europe (CoE) in 1999.

Nino Burjanadze, who was speaking at a session of the Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe’s monitoring committee in Tbilisi on October 25, said that she sees repatriation of Meskhetian Turks, who were deported from Georgia in 1944, as almost impossible at the moment, citing the presence of around 300,000 internally displaced persons, mainly from breakaway Abkhazia.

Georgia has to adopt a law on the return of Meskhetian Turks according to a commitment undertaken by the Georgian authorities; but both the previous as well as the new authorities in the country have been delayed adoption of this law citing the IDP problem.