Albanian-speakers of Western Thrace migrated towards today's European Turkey (Eastern Thrace), especially near Istanbul. Many Muslim Albanians achieved high office in Ottoman society and many of them, most notably the Köprülü family, became Grand Viziers of the Empire. The majority of the Albanian emigration came from Northern Kosovo and the Korça region of Albania. Descendants of this immigrants would later play an important role in the National Renaissance of Albania. The number of Albanians that resided in the region is unknown, as statistical data of the Ottoman Empire were based on religious identification (millets). Thus, the Orthodox Albanians were part of the Rûm millet,
Turks of Western Thrace was a measure to avert the possibility of the Greek region of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace becoming a "second Cyprus" sometime in the future or of being ceded to Turkey on the basis of the ethnic origin of its Muslim inhabitants. Greek courts have also outlawed the use of the word 'Turkish' to describe the Turkish community. In 1988, the Greek Supreme Court affirmed a 1986 decision of the Court of Appeals of Thrace in which the "Union of Turkish Associations of Western Thrace" was ordered closed. The court held that the use of the word 'Turkish' referred to citizens