Pomaks in Turkey Pomaks in Turkey The Pomaks in Turkey refers to an ethnic group, who are predominantly Muslim and speak their own dialect of Bulgarian. They mostly live in Eastern Thrace, though some are also present in Anatolia. In the census of 1965, 23,138 Turkish citizens spoke Pomak as mother language. Proportionally, they were most numerous in Edirne (3.4%), Kırklareli (1.3%) and Çanakkale (1.0%). 2,776 of these could only speak Pomak . Another 34,234 spoke Pomak as second best language. The Pomaks of Turkey speak a Bulgarian dialect. According to Ethnologue at present 300,000 Pomaks in European Turkey speak Bulgarian as mother
Provisional Government of Western Thrace along a ridge of the Rhodope mountains running west of Daridere and east of Madan up to the Bulgarian-Greek border. After the retreat of both the Bulgarian and Greek armies an autonomous state was declared with Ottoman support, in order to avoid Bulgarian rule after the Treaty of Bucharest, in which the Ottomans had not taken part. Under British pressure, the Bulgaria and the Ottomans signed the Treaty of Constantinople, which satisfied the Turkish claims to recognition of Eastern Thrace and recognized Western Thrace as part of Bulgaria. The Ottomans withdrew their forces and by 25 October, and the area