Muslim minority of Greece Greeks were required to leave Turkey, and the 356,000 Muslims outside of Thrace were required to leave Greece, including the Muslim Greek Vallahades of western Greek Macedonia. Consequently, most of the Muslim minority in Greece resides in the Greek region of Thrace, where they make up 28.88% of the population. Muslims form the largest group in the Rhodope regional unit (41.77%) and sizable percentages in the Xanthi (31.19%) and Evros regional units (4.65%). Nearly 300 Turks remain on the island of Rhodes and 200 on the island of Kos, as the islands were part of the Italian Dodecanese when the
Dodecanese territories, occupied all the present-day Dodecanese except for Kastellorizo. After the end of the war according to the Treaty of Ouchy, Italy maintained the occupation of the islands as guarantee for the execution of the treaty. The occupation continued after Italy declared war on the Ottoman Empire (21 August 1915) during the First World War. During the war, the islands became an important naval base for Britain and France; Italy was allied with both nations during World War I. The Dodecanese were used as a staging area for numerous campaigns, most famously the one at Gallipoli. Some of the smaller