Exchange Treaty.

After the Greek-Turkish War (1921-1922), Greek troops were dismissed out of Mikra Asia. Lots of Greeks ran away from Anatolia with the defeated Greek army. At the Lausanne Traty(1923), an agreement was taken due to exchange the populations of Greeks and Turks. The only measure in determining the ethnic groups that will be exchanged was the religion. The other measures like language and other ethnic factors were neglected. Only the Greek-Orthodoxes were exchanged with the Sunnite Muslims. Katholic and Protestant Greeks were not deported, while Turkish speaking Cilician Orthodoxes were exchanged. Also the Turkish speaking Karamanlides were sent to Greece, while Greek speaking Cretan Muslims were deported to Turkey.  

  Till 1928, nearly 850.000 Anatolian Greeks (Rum-Roman) were transported to Greece. Adding this the Greek Population of Turkish Thrace that is included to the exchange treaty, the total number of Greeks deported from Turkey makes a sum of 1.172.635. The Turks deported from Greece were numbering 400.000. At that time the total number of the remaining Greeks in Turkey was 200.000.

According to the traety, The Greeks (Rum-Roman) of Constantinople (Istanbul) and the Turks of Western Thrace was excluded from the treaty. The Greek community of Constantinople enjoyed several more years of peace and grown in number by the settlers escaping from the deportations in Anatolia. At the beginning of 1940s, there were nearly 140.000 Greeks in Constantinople.

                 Source : Internet

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