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 and Chechen people are usually considered Turkish under ethnic Turkish law.

Many of the minorities (including the Albanians, Bosnians, Crimean Tatars, and various peoples from the Caucasus, as well as some of the Turks themselves) are descendants of Muslims (muhajirs) who were expelled from the lands lost by the shrinking Ottoman Empire, but they have assimilated into and intermarried with the majority Turkish population and have adopted the Turkish language and way of life, though this does not make them ethnic Turks.

Although many minorities have no official recognition, state-run TRT television and radio broadcasts minority language programs and elementary schools offer minority language classes.

Groups of nomadic and semi-nomadic itinerants found mainly in central and western Anatolia. They speak an argot of their own and follow the Alevi faith.

Afghans are one of the largest irregular migrant groups in Turkey. From the period 2003-2007, the number of Afghans apprehended were significant, with statistics almost doubling during the last year. Most had fled the War in Afghanistan. In 2005, refugees from Afghanistan numbered 300 and made a sizeable proportion of Turkey's registered migrants. Most of them were spread out over satellite cities with Van and Ağrı being the most specific locations. In the following years, the number of Afghans entering Turkey greatly increased, second only to migrants from Iraq; in 2009, there were 16,000 people designated under the Iraq-Afghanistan category. Despite a dramatic 50 percent reduction by 2010, reports confirmed hundreds living and working in Turkey. As of January 2010, Afghans consisted one-sixth of the 26,000 remaining refugees and asylum seekers. By the end 2011, their numbers are expected to surge up to 10,000, making them the largest population and surpass other groups.

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