Former Syrian opposition leader among founders of Turkey's new opposition party

Khaled Khoja, the former head of the Western-backed Syrian National Coalition (SNC), swapped Syrian opposition for Turkish opposition last week via becoming one of the founders of former Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu's breakaway Future Party. Khoja, who uses Alptekin Hocaoğlu as his Turkish name, says "I wanted to become part of this reformist [Future] party because it will strive for individual freedoms and rights in Turkey."

Duvar English

A former Syrian opposition leader became one of the founders of a new Turkish political party led by former Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, raising eyebrows in both countries.

Khaled Khoja, the former head of the Western-backed Syrian National Coalition (SNC), swapped Syrian opposition for Turkish opposition last week via becoming one of the founders of Davutoğlu's Future Party.

Khoja, president of the western-backed SNC between 2015 and 2016, joined Davutoğlu and 152 other figures in setting up the new movement that has broken from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), Middle East Eye reported.

The former SNC head has launched the party using the name Alptekin Hocaoğlu, which he assumed when taking Turkish citizenship in 1993, a move condemned by many Syrians.

Left-wing Turkish newspapers described Khoja as a "jihadi" or a member of the Free Syrian Army rebel alliance due to his former association with the SNC.

Khoja, a medical doctor who owns hospitals in Turkey, emphasizes his Turkish roots.

“My mother and father were Turkish citizens who later emigrated to Syria,” Khoja told MEE.

"I left Syria in 1982 and finally enrolled at İzmir's Dokuz Eylül University medical school in Turkey. Then I claimed Turkish citizenship. Since then I have always used my Turkish ID because I don’t have anything at all proving that I also hold Syrian citizenship."

Khoja says his Turkish identity was known by the Syrian opposition leadership, and his citizenship helped the movement cut through bureaucratic red tape in Turkey, for instance when establishing and registering SNC offices.

According to Khoja, the opposition struggled to find prominent members from Syria's ethnic Turkish community, which was fearful of reprisals from the Syrian army. That, he said, helped propel him to a leading position in the SNC.

"I was elected to the Syrian Coalition thanks to my ethnicity, which is Turkish," Khoja said.

Khoja and Davutoğlu have worked in similar spheres for some time.

As close adviser to then-prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and later as foreign minister, Davutoğlu was very influential in first establishing close ties with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government and then abandoning it after the war.

"I first contacted [Davutoğlu] in 2006 to seek support for the activists who were imprisoned by Assad over a declaration they signed that called for more rights and freedoms for the Syrian society," Khoja said.

Since then, the two men have been in frequent contact, especially between 2015 and 2016 when Khoja was head of the Syrian political opposition.

"I wanted to become part of this reformist [Future] party because it will strive for individual freedoms and rights in Turkey," he said.

"I was inspired by Turkey's model in the early 2000s. I was telling my friends in the region that a country run by a democratically elected conservative government that respects rights and freedoms was possible. Unfortunately, instead of being a model country for the region, Turkey is becoming more like the Middle East."

When launching the Future Party last week, Davutoğlu called for a return of the politics that his former party AKP practiced before the 2017 constitutional referendum that brought in a presidential system and cemented President Erdoğan's control.

However, Khoja said his Future Party membership won't prevent him from lending support to some of the government's policies, such as signing a security deal with Libya's UN-recognized Government of National Accord.

"Of course I will work for the good of immigrants from Middle Eastern countries who bring investment, talent and social contribution. They have a lot to add, from nanotech to various fields," he said. 

Allegations that Khoja is a militant or "jihadi," however, are met with amusement.

"I laugh at the people who claim I was part of the Free Syrian Army or jihadis," Khoja said.

"We merely wanted to establish a moderate political group that would show the world what would be possible if Assad was toppled. I have numerous pictures with heads of states in Europe. I haven't been in Syria since 1983."