The Turkish presence in Meskheti began with the Ottoman military expedition of 1578,[20] although Turkic tribes had settled in the region as early as the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

[20] Today, the Meskhetian Turks are widely dispersed throughout the former Soviet Union (as well as in Turkey and the United States) due to forced deportations during World War II.

[34] However, by the Treaty of Zuhab (1639), all of Meskheti fell under Ottoman control, and it brought an end to Iranian attempts to retake the region.

[35][34] On 15 November 1944, the then General Secretary of CPSU, Joseph Stalin, ordered the deportation of over 115,000 Meskhetian Turks from their homeland,[36] who were secretly driven from their homes and herded onto rail cars.

[21] In June 1945 Vyacheslav Molotov, who was then Minister of Foreign Affairs, presented a demand to the Turkish Ambassador in Moscow for the surrender of three Anatolia provinces (Kars, Ardahan and Artvin).

[21] As Moscow was also preparing to support Armenian claims to several other Anatolian provinces, war against Turkey seemed possible, and Joseph Stalin wanted to clear the strategic Georgian-Turkish border where the Meskhetian Turks were settled and who were likely to be hostile to such Soviet intentions.

[36] The majority of Meskhetian Turks, about 70,000, went to Azerbaijan, whilst the remainder went to various regions of Russia (especially Krasnodar Krai), Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan[36][40] and Ukraine.

Meskhetian Turk refugees who had been persecuted in Central Asia were forcibly relocated to the Azerbaijan where they settled in Khojaly in Nagorno Karabakh before being subsequently massacred along with Azerbaijanis in 1992.

[41] According to Thomas de Waal, Khojaly had been the focus of a large resettlement program by the Azerbaijan government in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

[42] Russian journalist Victoria Ivleva took photos of the town streets strewn with dead bodies of its inhabitants, including women and children.

Turkish Meskhetian community representative in the eastern city of Donetsk, Nebican Basatov, said that those who have fled have sought refuge in Russia, Azerbaijan, Turkey and different parts of Ukraine.

[12][13] The Meskhetian Turks speak an Eastern Anatolian dialect of Turkish, which hails from the regions of Kars, Ardahan, and Artvin.

Before the bride enters her husband's house she uses the heel on her shoe to break two plates with her foot and applies honey on the doorway.

[54] The Religious male circumcision Ceremony of the Ahiska Turks, is hold in a big way of Dance, Music, Guests, recitation of the Koran and a special Kirve (Sandek).