Minorities in Turkey seekers. By the end 2011, their numbers are expected to surge up to 10,000, making them the largest population and surpass other groups. Ethnic Kurds are the largest minority in Turkey, composing around 20% of the population according to Milliyet, 18% of the total populace or c. 14 million people according to the CIA World Factbook, and as much as 23% according to Kurdologist David McDowall. Unlike the Turks, the Kurds speak an Iranian language. There are Kurds living all over Turkey, but most live to the east and southeast of the country, from where they originate. In the 1930s,
Population exchange between Greece and Turkey Pomaks, Cham Albanians, Megleno-Romanians, and Dönmeh. The Turks and other Muslims of Western Thrace were exempted from this transfer as were the Greeks of Constantinople (Istanbul) and the Aegean Islands of Imbros (Gökçeada) and Tenedos (Bozcaada). In the event, those Greeks who had temporarily fled these regions, particularly Istanbul, before the entrance of the Turkish army were not permitted to return to their homes by Turkey afterwards. Greece, with a population of just over 5,000,000 people, had to absorb 1,221,489 new citizens from Turkey. The punitive measures carried out by the Republic of Turkey, such as the 1932 parliamentary law