President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Sunday met Ahıska Turks in New York and handed out ID playing cards for individuals who had been granted citizenship. The president, within the U.S. to attend the U.N. Basic Meeting, mentioned that Türkiye was accelerating the method for Ahıska Turks, also called Meskhetian Turks, to realize Turkish citizenship.
Talking at a group gathering, Erdoğan said that Türkiye doesn’t regard its peace and well-being as distinct from its personal residents. “We’re taking the mandatory steps for them to accumulate Turkish citizenship, which they’ve desired for years and we’re accelerating that course of,” he mentioned.
“Since 2022, 820 of our kinsmen have attained Turkish citizenship. We are going to rapidly full our work for our 578 kinsmen whose procedures are nonetheless ongoing,” he mentioned. “Earlier than our time period, the variety of Meskhetian Turks who had been granted citizenship was very restricted. In our time period, this quantity has surpassed 60,000.”
Ahıska Turks had been expelled from the Meskheti area of Georgia by Soviet chief Joseph Stalin in 1944. In addition they confronted discrimination and human rights abuses earlier than and after the Soviet deportation.
Eighty-six-year-old Mihrali Mametoğlu and 83-year-old Yunus Muradov had been among the many oldest who had been granted citizenship. Mametoğlu and Muradov thanked Türkiye for giving them citizenship on the occasion Erdoğan attended. “Could no person undergo from what I suffered,” Mametoğlu, who was 8 years outdated throughout his household’s exile, mentioned. Muradov mentioned all Muslims rallied for Erdoğan as a result of he turned like a father to them. “This man can also be like a father for all Turks,” he hailed the president. “You might be all conscious of what we have gone via. No person can overlook his previous. I thank Mr. President. We are going to by no means undergo once more so long as you might be with us,” Muradov mentioned.
Assembly with Georgian prime minister
On Sunday, Erdoğan additionally obtained Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili on the Turkish Home (Türkevi) in New York. They mentioned the significance of implementing the Center Hall.
Erdoğan highlighted the swift operationalization of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway as a key precedence, in keeping with the Turkish Presidency. The Trans-Caspian East-West-Center Hall Initiative, also called “the Center Hall,” which begins in Türkiye and passes via the Caucasus area through Georgia and Azerbaijan, crosses the Caspian Sea, traverses Central Asia and reaches China, is among the most essential parts of efforts to revive the traditional Silk Highway, in keeping with Türkiye’s Ministry of International Affairs. Throughout their assembly, Erdoğan additionally thanked Georgia for its help after the key earthquakes in Türkiye in February, in keeping with an announcement from Türkiye’s Directorate of Communications.
The president additionally pressured the significance of closing colleges run by the Gülenist Terrorist Group (FETÖ) in Georgia and freezing their property and congratulated the Georgian administration for the steps taken on this problem, in keeping with the assertion. The 2 leaders additionally pressured the significance of accelerating the commerce quantity between Türkiye and Georgia from $3 billion to $5 billion (TL 81.04 billion to TL 135.07 billion).