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 the Greek and Turkish governments that minority protection would not suffice to ameliorate ethnic tensions after the First World War, population exchange was promoted as the only viable option. According to representatives from Ankara, the "amelioration of the lot of the minorities in Turkey' depended 'above all on the exclusion of every kind of foreign intervention and of the possibility of provocation coming from outside'. This could be achieved most effectively with an exchange, and 'the best guarantees for the security and development of the minorities remaining' after the exchange 'would be those supplied both by the laws of the