You became a "Turk" by learning the language, becoming a Moslem, and paying whatever taxes were due. That lead to an influx of Arabs, Berbers, Copts, Greeks, Slavs and Persians ~ over a very long period of time.
The original Celtic population occupying Anatolia at the time of the coming of the Seljuk Turks didn't get exterminated ~ they were assimilated. From that point on, as the Empire expanded into territory formerly ruled by Greeks, Arabs, Persians and Egyptians, you had a spread of the language, culture and ethnic affiliations.
Even Armenians turned into good little Turks over the centuries of nominally Turkish rule.
If we are to hold the present day population of the core Turkish speaking area solely responsible for the misdeeds of the ancient regime, we do a grave injustice to them. We must hold their close DNA relatives equally guilty and demand apologies from them ~ even from the Greeks!
That's your quote.
You become a Turk by becoming a Muslim.
So much for Turkey's phony vaunted claim of being a sectarian state.
Like all Islamic backwaters, citizenship and equality as a Human Being is denied to non-Muslims.
That is why the Ottomans tried to exterminate the Christian Muslims and Christian Assyrians, and Christian Greeks, etc.
Because they were Christians and not Muslims they were Non-Turks and Non-Persons.
And this is a pattern replicated in every area where the indigenous population was originally non-Islamic and Muslims intruded. The persecution of non-Muslims becomes so severe as the percentage of Muslims increases, that more and more non-Muslims are forced to become Muslims in order to be treated as human beings.
That happened to all the indigenous people of Turkey.
And that will happen in the west and in the U.S. if we continue to extend to this virulent political, social, and economic cult the protection we extend to other pure religions.