Greeks in Turkey

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The Greeks in Turkey (Turkish: Rumlar) constitute a small population of Greek and Greek-speaking Eastern Orthodox Christians who mostly live in Istanbul, as well as on the two islands of the western entrance to the Dardanelles: Imbros and Tenedos (Turkish: Gökçeada and Bozcaada). Greeks are one of the four ethnic minorities officially recognized in Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, together with Jews, Armenians,^[6][7][8] and Bulgarians.^[9][10][11]

They are the remnants of the estimated 200,000 Greeks who were permitted under the provisions of the Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations to remain in Turkey following the 1923 population exchange,^[12] which involved the forcible resettlement of approximately 1.5 million Greeks from Anatolia and East Thrace and of half a million Turks from all of Greece except for Western Thrace. After years of persecution (e.g. the Varlık Vergisi and the Istanbul Pogrom), emigration of ethnic Greeks from the Istanbul region greatly accelerated, reducing the Greek minority population from 119,822 before the attack^[13] to about 7,000 by 1978.^[14] The 2008 figures released by the Turkish Foreign Ministry places the current number of Turkish citizens of Greek descent at the 3,000–4,000 mark.^[2] However, according to the Human Rights Watch the Greek population in Turkey is estimated at 2,500 in 2006. The Greek population in Turkey is collapsing as the community is now far too small to sustain itself demographically, due to emigration, much higher death rates than birth rates and continuing discrimination.^[15]

Since 1924, the status of the Greek minority in Turkey has been ambiguous. Beginning in the 1930s, the government instituted repressive policies forcing many Greeks to emigrate. Examples are the labour battalions drafted among non-Muslims during World War II, as well as the Fortune Tax (Varlık Vergisi) levied mostly on non-Muslims during the same period. These resulted in financial ruination and death for many Greeks. The exodus was given greater impetus with the Istanbul Pogrom of September 1955 which led to thousands of Greeks fleeing the city, eventually reducing the Greek population to about 7,000 by 1978 and to about 2,500 by 2006. According to the United Nations, this figure was much smaller in 2012 and reached 2,000. As of 2023, according to The Economist, "Turkey's Greeks are on the verge of extinction".^[16]

A minority of Muslim Pontic Greek speakers, using a dialect called "Romeyka" or "Ophitic", still live in the area around Of.^[17][18][19]