GEORGIAN AND INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS CONCERNED OVER REPATRIATION OF MESKHETIAN TURKS TO SAMTSKHE-JAVAKHETI

ARMINFO News Agency
October 10, 2006 Tuesday

Georgian and international human rights activists are concerned over
the inadequate actions of the Georgian authorities to repatriate
Meskhetian Turks to Georgia’s mostly-Armenian Samtskhe-Javakheti
region. They say that this may aggravate the complicated ethnic
situation in the country.

During the working session of the 11th OSCE Human Dimension
Implementation meeting in Warsaw, Deputy Director of the Humanitarian
Cooperation and Human Rights Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry
S. Tolkalin invited the attention of the OSCE to the violation of the
rights of ethnic minorities, particularly, Armenians and Azeris, in
Georgia. He said that those two communities are constantly complaining
of their deteriorating state.

The press service of the Russian Embassy in Yerevan reports Tolkanlin
to say: "We know well how the OSCE and its member states react to
such events and we are expecting the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, ODIHR,
OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media and High Commissioner for
National Minorities to give an appropriate assessment of the human
rights situation in Georgia."