 The decree made provision for the relocation of Meskhetian Turks, Kurds, Hamsheni Armenians and "others", though the latter category underlyingly referred to Azeris living in Samtskhe-Javakheti and Ajara.Georgian NKVD officers made no distinction between the Azeris and the key deportation target groups, as together with Kurds and Hamsheni Armenians, they were seen as "Turkish-oriented".In 1949, it was revealed that out of almost 100,000 deportees, 24,304 were Azeris.