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Georgia vs. Turkey

Transnational Issues

GeorgiaTurkey
Disputes - international

Russia's military support and subsequent recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia independence in 2008 continue to sour relations with Georgia

complex maritime, air, and territorial disputes with Greece in the Aegean Sea; status of north Cyprus question remains; Turkey has expressed concern over the status of Kurds in Iraq; in 2009, Swiss mediators facilitated an accord reestablishing diplomatic ties between Armenia and Turkey, but neither side has ratified the agreement and the rapprochement effort has faltered; Turkish authorities have complained that blasting from quarries in Armenia might be damaging the medieval ruins of Ani, on the other side of the Arpacay valley

Illicit drugslimited cultivation of cannabis and opium poppy, mostly for domestic consumption; used as transshipment point for opiates via Central Asia to Western Europe and Russiakey transit route for Southwest Asian heroin to Western Europe and, to a lesser extent, the US - via air, land, and sea routes; major Turkish and other international trafficking organizations operate out of Istanbul; laboratories to convert imported morphine base into heroin exist in remote regions of Turkey and near Istanbul; government maintains strict controls over areas of legal opium poppy cultivation and over output of poppy straw concentrate; lax enforcement of money-laundering controls
Refugees and internally displaced personsIDPs: 304,000 (displaced in the 1990s as a result of armed conflict in the breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia; displaced in 2008 by fighting between Georgia and Russia over South Ossetia) (2019)

stateless persons: 531 (2020)		refugees (country of origin): 3,705,188 (Syria) (2021); 173,250 (Iraq) (asylum seekers), 116,400 (Afghanistan) (asylum seekers), 27,000 (Iran) (asylum seekers) (2020)

IDPs: 1.099 million (displaced from 1984-2005 because of fighting between the Kurdish PKK and Turkish military; most IDPs are Kurds from eastern and southeastern provinces; no information available on persons displaced by development projects) (2020)

stateless persons: 117 (2018)

Source: CIA Factbook