Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Monday met a delegation of Ahıska Turks in Moscow.
"Our minister Hakan Fidan received the representatives of our Ahıska Turk compatriots in Moscow, the capital of Russia, where he was to attend the BRICS+ meeting," the Turkish Foreign Ministry said on X.
Ahıska Turks were expelled from the Meskheti region of Georgia by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in 1944. They also faced discrimination and human rights abuses before and after the Soviet deportation. Most of them were exiled to distant parts of the Soviet Union, according to the World Ahıska Turks Association. Some settled in Ukraine in 1989.
Due to the conflict that broke out between pro-Russian separatists and the Ukrainian army in eastern Ukraine in 2014, most Ahıska Turks were allowed to move to Türkiye and settled in the eastern Erzincan province on President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's initiative. Türkiye has evacuated nearly 100 of them from Ukraine since the war began in February 2022.
Fidan is in Russia to attend a two-day meeting of the BRICS bloc – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – of emerging economies. The meeting marks the first gathering since the group expanded from five members to nine in January with the addition of Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates as official members.
Another 15 countries, including Türkiye, were also invited to the expanded format of the meeting.
