Minorities in Turkey Minorities in Turkey Minorities in Turkey form a substantial part of the country's population, with at least an estimated 30% of the populace belonging to an ethnic minority. While the Republic of Turkey, following the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, recognizes Armenians, Greeks and Jews as ethnic minorities, this legal status is not granted to Muslim minorities, such as the Kurds, which constitute the largest minority by a wide margin (13–18%), nor any of the other minorities in the country. The amount of ethnic minorities is suspected to be underestimated by the Turkish government. Ethnic Albanians, Pontic Greeks, Kurds, Arabs, Bosniaks,
Population exchange between Greece and Turkey of 3 million within the present borders of Turkey was actually 4.3 million of the 17.5 million total. Christians were actually close to 25% of the population in 1912, not 18.9% as reported. There were 8.5 million people in the Ottoman governed Arabic-speaking regions of the Levant and Arabia of whom 1.6 million were Christian giving the total number of Christians in the Empire as just short of 5.8-6 million or slightly less than 23%. By 1924 the Christian population of Turkey proper had been reduced from 4.2 million in 1912 to 700,000 (50% of the pre-War Christians had been