27 May 2011
Before Wold War I there were about 250,000 Greeks in Turkey, now there are 3,000 or 4,000. There are also very few Armenians, perhaps 60,000, and even fewer Jews, maybe 25,000. The multicultural Istanbul of a hundred years ago no longer exists, but it has been replaced by a new form of diversity. It is only when one observes the ethnic composition of the country that one discovers it is filled with differences. There are many Kurds and Alevis, as well as other ethnic groups, and effectively there is now multiculturalism within Islam itself, although not all Muslims practice.