Turkey Turkish population are of Turkish ethnicity and approximately 70–80 per cent of the country's citizens identify themselves as Turkish. It is estimated that there are at least 47 ethnic groups represented in Turkey. Reliable data on the ethnic mix of the population is not available, because Turkish census figures do not include statistics on ethnicity. Kurds are the largest non-Turkic ethnicity at anywhere from 12-25 per cent of the population. The exact figure remains a subject of dispute; according to Servet Mutlu, "more often then not, these estimates reflect pro-Kurdish or pro-Turkish sympathies and attitudes rather than scientific facts or
Population exchange between Greece and Turkey a legitimizing factor or a "safe criterion" in marking ethnic groups as Turkish or as Greek in the population exchange. As a result, the Greek-Turkish population exchange did exchange the Greek-Orthodox population of Anatolia, Turkey and the Muslim population of Greece. However, due to the heterogeneous nature of these former Ottoman lands, many other ethnic groups posed social and legal challenges to the terms of the agreement for years after its signing. Among these were the Protestant and Catholic Greeks, the Arabs, Albanians, Russians, Serbians, Romanians of the Greek Orthodox religion; the Albanian, Bulgarian, Greek Muslims of Macedonia and Epirus,