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On İki Ada Türkleri | |
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| Total population | |
| 5,000 | |
| Languages | |
| Greek andTurkish | |
| Religion | |
| Sunni Islam[1] |
| Part ofa series of articles on |
| Turkish people |
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Traditional Areas of Turkish Settlement Turkish majorities:
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| Part ofa series on |
| Greeks |
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Groups by region Modern Greece: Constantinople and Asia Minor: Other regions: Other groups: |
| History of Greece (Ancient ·Byzantine ·Ottoman) |
TheTurks of the Dodecanese (Turkish:On İki Ada Türkleri) are a community of ethnicTurks, indigenousGreek Muslims andCretan Muslims living on theDodecanese islands ofRhodes (Turkish:Rodos) andKos (Turkish:İstanköy).
The Dodecanese was gradually settled by Turks from the Anatolian mainland from the 1480s onwards, added to by theGreek Muslims whose ancestors on the islands converted to Islam in the Ottoman period and were consequently referred to as 'Turks' as a synonym for Ottoman Muslim rather than because of their actual ethnic origin. The main island ofRhodes passed from Hospitaller to Ottoman rulein 1522.
After almost four centuries under the Ottoman Empire, control of the Dodecanese passed to Italy in the aftermath of theItalo-Turkish War of 1912. The Turkish population on the island was not affected by the1923 population exchange, because the Dodecanese islands were under the rule of theKingdom of Italy at the time. All inhabitants of the islands became Greek citizens after 1947 when the islands became part ofGreece.[citation needed] Their population is estimated at less than 5,000 individuals.[2]
As a result of this incorporation into Greece and due to the situation following theCyprus conflict and theTurkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974 many Muslim Turks were expelled from the islands and forced to settle inTurkey.[3][4]
The Turks in Kos are partly organized around the Muslim Association of Kos, which estimates that the community on the island numbers approximately 2,000 individuals.[5] Those in Rhodes are organized around the Moslem Association of Rhodes, which estimates that the community numbers roughly 3,500 people.[6] The president of their association Mazloum Paizanoglou has said that the communities number approximately 2,500 in Rhodes and 2,000 in Kos.[7]
| Hellenic | |
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| Traditional | |
| Recent | |
