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,
Circassians in Turkey Circassians in Turkey The Circassians in Turkey (East Circassian and West Circassian: Адыгэхэр Тырку, "Adyghexer Tyrku"; ) are one of the largest ethnic minorities in Turkey, with a population between 130,000 and 2 million. The closely related ethnic groups Abazins (10,000) and Abkhazians (39,000) are also often counted among them. Circassians are a Caucasian immigrant people, but the vast majority of them have assimilated to the Turkish language, and only a small minority still speak their native Circassian languages. The Circassians in Turkey are almost exclusively Sunni Muslims of Hanafi madh'hab. In the census of 1965, 58,339 Turkish citizens spoke