67 years have passed since the wholesale deportation of the Meskhetian communities along with other targeted Muslim groups living in the southern parts of Georgia in the Caucasus region. In 1944, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin ordered some 100,000 people from the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic to be banished to Central Asia. Throughout the following decades, the Meskhetian communities found themselves in a lingering exile, prohibited from returning to their homeland. With the collapse of the USSR, oscillating perspectives arose both from the Georgian government and society concerning the repatriation of Meskhetians to the country. Today, with support from the international community, as well as civil society organizations, the estimated 425,000 Meskhetians that are dispersed across nine countries of current settlement Kazakhstan,Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Russia, Ukraine, Georgia Turkey and the USA seem to have a long-awaited opportunity to return to Georgia. With a foreword by the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities, Knut Vollebaek, this book on the Meskhetians aims at introducing the deported communities, the circumstances of their years in exile, and their current situations into the broader context of the possibility of repatriation. The book has been prepared to be of particular use as a reference material, especially in Georgia, where the issue of repatriation over the recent years has increasingly become a reality. The volume is published concurrently in English, Georgian and Russian, and is intended to stimulate the debate and undertakings among the Georgian government and civil society stakeholders as the country and local communities are preparing for the repatriation and integration of those deported Meskhetians who are homeward bound.