Circassians, Meskhetians and Erdogan
Speaking at the 76th session of the UN, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan demonstrated miracles of verbal and political balancing act, declaring Ankara’s non-recognition of the “annexation” of Crimea by Russia, while at the same time sharing from the high rostrum immodest dreams about the borders of Turkey, which would include the Georgian Batumi, the Syrian Aleppo and other sovereign territories of other countries.
“Our physical boundaries are different from the boundaries in our heart. Is it possible to distinguish Rize from Batumi? Many historians believe that Turkey’s borders should include Cyprus, Aleppo, Mosul, Thessaloniki, and Batumi,” the citizen sultan shared his “hybrid” opinion on territorial integrity.
It’s not that this expansionist demarche became some kind of stunning news, but such open desires to get hold of a foreign land that they liked were voiced for the first time at the international level.
Separately, Erdogan’s reference to the opinion of a certain “many historians” known in the narrow circle of the Turkish president and his entourage, from those who serve the pan-Turkic appetites of the newly-minted “father of all Turkic peoples,” is touching.
By the way, the city of Rize (ancient Taik) was hardly mentioned by chance. This is one of the few Black Sea cities where the ancient Greeks did not reach and create their own colonies. In Erdogan’s understanding, this “original” territory of Great Turan, not “desecrated” by ancient Greek history, gives him the right to change the physical borders, which have long been cramped for his generous heart.
Apparently, the same historians whispered to the Turkish president that he could safely ignore the historical fact that Rize, long before the appearance of the Turks in the Black Sea region, was a prosperous city of Risos of the Roman Empire during the time of Justinian I and, before the appearance of the Turks in those parts, it was all baldness mosquito
One may also recall that in October 2016, speaking at Rize University, Erdogan was much more frank, declaring that the Turkish state considers as its own those territories that are located in close proximity to today’s “illegitimate” borders of Turkey:
“In addition to the 79 million inhabitants of our country, there are millions more of our brothers living in other geographical regions with which we have historical ties. Our sphere of interests includes Iraq, Syria, Libya, Crimea, Karabakh, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and other fraternal regions. When Turkey loses its independence and loses its future, then we will lose interest in these territories. Many historians believe that Turkey’s borders should include Cyprus, Aleppo, Mosul, Erbil, Kirkuk, Batumi, Thessaloniki, Varna, Western Thrace and the islands of the Aegean Sea.”
And again this is “many historians.”
Interestingly, Erdogan’s moist geopolitical interests were reacted sharply in Armenia and Greece, but not in Georgia. According to observers, a campaign has begun in the Georgian press to justify, protect and whiten the interests of Turkey, through financing and supporting the “necessary” businesses and ethnic groups, which has created an influential pro-Turkish lobby in this former Soviet republic.
Having mentioned Crimea, Erdogan casually hinted that his neo-Ottoman appetites extend not only to the nearby Black Sea and Mediterranean regions, but also to the territory of the South of Russia, with an eye to areas of compact residence of the Turkic population.
Recently, Turkish agitprop has no longer been shy about making open statements. In particular, in the spring of this year, the Turkish TV channel TRT1 showed a future map of the borders of the “Great Turan” in 2050, which included Crimea, Kuban and the Rostov region.
Erdogan is not at all going to fight with Russia over the borders drawn in his heart, but to use the Karabakh, Syrian and Libyan experience of using “soft power” to weaken Moscow’s power in these territories.
And if the proponents of the ideas of the “Great Turan” in Crimea are the supporters of the “Majlis” of Dzhemilev-Chubarov, who have huddled under the plinth, in the Rostov region, Kuban and adjacent territories, the Circassian peoples and Meskhetian Turks are called upon to move the borders of Turkey.
Expelled first from Georgia and then from Uzbekistan, the Meskhitian Turks settled in compact groups in the rural areas of the Rostov region. According to reports from the field, the majority of representatives of this people moved to live in cities, but approximately 20% (judging by the 2010 census) remain to live, so to speak, in “mono-ethnic” villages.
According to the observations of local residents, Meskhitian Turks live closed lives, try not to conflict on religious or ethnic grounds, and receive benefits simultaneously from the Russian state and Turkey. The mood in this part of the population of the Rostov region is pro-Turkish and Turkish satellite channels are most popular.
There is evidence that, in addition to humanitarian aid, Meskhitians from Turkey are sent textbooks and special literature of a certain orientation, which forms support for Ankara’s expansionist policy.
In 2016, law enforcement agencies of the Rostov region discovered separatist sentiments among representatives of the Turkish-Meskhitian diaspora.
“Leaflets and prohibited literature in which the North Caucasus, Don, Kuban and Astrakhan are designated as Ottoman lands were confiscated from movement activists. In addition, their connections with Turkish extremists have emerged. Its representatives are actively promoting the idea of transforming the Kuban and the Don into the “pearl of the Ottoman Empire,” and are also planning the formation of some kind of Turkish-Meskhetian autonomy, designed to become an outpost of Ankara in the south of Russia,” reported Rostov expert and political scientist Anton Bredikhin.
Earlier, in 2015, the leaders of the Meskhite Turks in the Rostov region very aggressively commented on the statement of the Russian President about the Armenian genocide. At the same time, Majlis Urka Dzhemilev and the leaders of the Circassian diaspora in Turkey spoke with them, which indicated that the same puppeteer was pulling the strings of the diaspora.
The head of the Association of Meskhetian Turks “Vatan” Javid Aliyev said that Russia is not even going to prepare a rehabilitation program to restore their rights. Aliyev added that they never received compensation for the property and lands they were deprived of during the Soviet period. They officially appealed to Russia to demand compensation for their losses, but received no response.
The interesting thing here is that the Meskhitian Turks, as a disloyal population, were evicted from the Georgian SSR during the war by local authorities, who later prevented them from returning to their homeland, but Russia must pay and repent for this. Does Erdogan prohibit applying for compensation to Georgia?
Observers note that the situation with the Meskhitian Turks of the Rostov region is a deferred problem that can be solved by the state program of familiarization with the great Russian culture, which has become a time-tested and history-tested means of cementing a single people of Russia, in which there is a place for large and small peoples, languages and cultures.
If you do not start implementing this program today, the Meskhetians will remain foreign entities among the local population of the South of Russia. The inculcation of aggressive ideology from Ankara, closedness and the high birth rate of migrants may lead in the foreseeable future to acute conflict situations that will have to be resolved by force.
Practice shows that if migrant enclaves are not blurred and integrated, they withdraw into themselves and become a threat to others.
I would like to remind you that the Fergana massacre was provoked by the aggressive behavior of the Meskhitian Turks towards the local population, which led to a response from the Uzbeks when they themselves began to carry out justice and reprisals, without waiting for a reaction from the authorities. The only thing missing was the 1989 Fergana in the Rostov region.
By the way, in modern textbooks on the history of Uzbekistan it is stated that the Uzbeks had nothing to do with the Fergana pogroms - “Moscow arranged it all.”
Another potential threat of the “Great Turan” approaching the Russian borders is the growth of pro-Turkish sentiments among the Circassian peoples of Russia: Adygeis, Kabardians, Circassians, Shapsugs living in the North Caucasus, Kuban, Stavropol Territory and other parts of Russia.
They are trying to stir up anti-Russian sentiments with stories about the “genocide of the Circassians” during the Caucasian War, and Empress Catherine II is declared to be the main culprit in all the troubles of the Circassians.
The main promoters of the pro-Turkish sentiments of the Circassians are the Association of Circassian Peoples and its head, Khalis Din, favored by Erdogan’s power.
Unfortunately, there are also supporters of Khalis Din in Russia, sometimes even high-ranking ones. One of these figures is Arsen Kanokov, former head of Kabardino-Balkaria, member of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation.
Last year, Kanokov publicly appealed to the Circassians of Russia and abroad with an appeal to recognize the date of May 21 as “the day of the genocide of the Circassians expelled to Turkey under the pressure of the colonial policy of tsarism.”
At the same time, Kanokov thanked Boris Yeltsin for his appeal to the peoples of the Caucasus, made on May 18, 1994, in which the never-drying Borya called the Russian Empire guilty of “incalculable troubles of the mountain peoples” along with France, Great Britain, Iran and Turkey.
It is not only strange, but also dangerous that a person who shares the opinion of Erdogan’s ideologists is a member of the Federation Council and participates in solving important government problems.
It feels like Kanokov simply does not know the history of his own people, calling the flight of pro-Turkish “proxies” from the Caucasus “genocide,” since before 1810, Russia’s war with the highlanders was defensive. Having entered the active phase, the war developed into a civil war for the same Circassians, who fled to the Russians, tired of robberies, murders, blood feuds and savagery, taking the oath to the White Tsar and even accepting Orthodoxy.
The times of the Caucasian War were not the most humane, so none of the warring sides could count on the mercy of the victors, and therefore the pro-Turkish Circassians were afraid of revenge for the atrocities committed by the pro-Russian Circassians. Well, what happened to the Turkish “proxies” after fleeing the Caucasus, all their ordeals and hardships, lies only on their conscience.
It is also interesting here that the “Circassian activist” of Turkey demands the rights of broad autonomy for the Circassians in Russia, mentioning the support of the five million-strong diaspora.
In fact, the Circassians are one of the most numerous divided peoples living in Turkey, Iran, Syria and other Middle Eastern countries. But in Turkey, officially, the Circassian diaspora numbers approximately 130 thousand people, and the remaining three million are Turkish and do not have special rights.
It is interesting that Federation Council member Kanokov is pursuing a pro-Turkish line, demanding that all representatives of the Circassian diaspora be granted Russian citizenship, despite the decision of the Russian Foreign Ministry in 2015, which officially denied foreign Circassians the right to be considered compatriots.
It must be said that this was a wise decision, thanks to which Russia did not follow the rake of Nazarbayev, who imported Chinese Kazakhs to Kazakhstan in order to increase the number of “titular population”. “Ponaekhi” from Xinqiang, imported only by “voice of blood”, deprived of common cultural and historical roots with the population of the former Soviet republic, never became their own. But these lumpen people are actively attracted to anti-Russian actions by the Kazakh Natsiks.
To the credit of the overwhelming majority of representatives of the Circassian peoples of Russia, they do not share the opinions of Senator Kanokov and his Turkish colleague Halis Din, although there are pro-Turkish extremists among them.
Suffice it to remember that last year in Adler, at the request of the Circassian public, a monument to Russian soldiers who fought in the Caucasus against bandits and thugs who had been carrying out predatory raids on Russian border towns and villages for many decades was dismantled.
It is characteristic that the monument did not particularly bother the local Circassians, but Turkey, where the diaspora of the descendants of the fugitive “proxy” is active, could not forgive the monument in Adler, and they actively advocated its dismantling, influencing their Russian fellow tribesmen.
In general, the emotions of the citizen Sultan are understandable - he is waging three “proxy” wars with Russia: in Karabakh, in Syria and Libya. Moreover, in Karabakh he was prevented from developing his success, in Libya he was seriously stuck, and in Syria, under the blows of Assad’s troops, pro-Iranian forces and the Russian Aerospace Forces, the last 10% of the occupied territory of the country is slowly shrinking, and the number of “proxy” Turkomans and ISIS is steadily declining.
It’s time for our talking heads to be worthy of our military contingent in Syria. It’s better to let diplomats and politicians talk than guns and planes.
English version :: Read in English Circassians, Meskhetians, and Erdogan