105 Meskhetian Turks received immigrant status in Georgia

The Ministry for Internally Displacement Persons, Resettlement and Refugees of Georgia granted the status of immigrant to 105 Meskhetian immigrants.

This was reported by Georgy Zubava, Ministry's representative, at the roundtable at the office of the NGO "Kavkazsky Dom" (Caucasian House).

"Most part of applications was submitted by Meskhetians living in Azerbaijan. We also received several applications from Central Asia, Turkey, and Russia, and two applications from California," Dinola Chkhartishvili, a staff member of the European Centre for National Minorities, reported.

In total, the Ministry for Internally Displacement Persons, Resettlement and Refugees of Georgia received the 5841 application from Meskhetian immigrants asking for refugee status under the Law "On Repatriation", adopted in Georgia in 2007.

The Law "On Repatriation", regulating the procedure for granting an immigrant status, stipulated that applications for granting a status could be taken only until January 1, 2009. The government of Georgia made only one relief in respect of applicants: they were allowed to correct errors in applications and supplement them with the required documents before January 1, 2010; and then the consideration of the applications started.

Once a person will be granted an immigrant status, he will have to submit to state agencies of the country, where he resides, an application of revocation of citizenship. Upon revocation of his previous citizenship a person will receive a Georgian one.

According to Marina Dubrovina, a human rights activist from the city of Krasnodar, under whose initiative the discussion was organized, such a procedure is not very attractive to Meskhetians who live in Russia today.

According to her, a very small number of applications for immigrant status came from Russia.

"Basically, the people, who lived in Georgia, who remember the country and feel nostalgia, want to return. And the younger people of working age look at it pragmatically: they are primarily interested in the social guarantees – whether they will be provided with housing and able to find a job," Marina Dubrovina has noted.

To the question whether there is any organization of Meskhetians in Georgia, which would be engaged in raising funds for the purchase of houses for immigrants and their integration into the Georgian society, Dinola Chkhartishvili replied in the negative.