Some 74 years ago, Meskhetian Turks were deported from their homeland in Soviet Georgia. They've been trying to return to the region ever since.

“We were herded onto freight trains on the night of Nov. 14-15, 1944, and deported to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Actually, we have never gotten out of that train," said Hassan Memetoglu, describing how Meskhetian Turks see their seemingly unending exile. Memetoglu, who was later transferred to his second exile destination in Ukraine, made it to Turkey in 1999, lived there as an illegal immigrant, got his residence permit and waited three more years for his Turkish citizenship. Many Meshketian Turks would like to move to Turkey; Georgia's Meskheti region, which is along the Turkish border, once was part of the Ottoman Empire.

More than 115,000 people from the Meskheti region in Soviet Georgia were exiled under orders of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. They still haven't been able to return to Georgia in large numbers. Those who came to Turkey couldn’t obtain citizenship for a long time. Now they are promised Turkish citizenship, but that comes with heated debates about demographic change that negatively affects Kurds and about election gimmickry.

A Soviet decision in 1956 regarding people exiled under the Soviet regime allowed Chechens, Ingush, Karachays and Balkars (a Turkic people of the Caucasus) to go back home, but Meskhetian Turks and Crimean Tatars were not allowed to return. Armenians had been settled in the abandoned homes of Meskhetian Turks, who then were prevented from returning on the grounds of possible ethnic clashes. But the real reason was the proximity of the Meskheti region to Turkey, where many of the Meskhetis had relatives. Still, many Meskhetians moved to Azerbaijan, which was closer to their homeland.