Syrian Opposition Leader: Khaled Khoja

On March 1st Khaled Khoja met with a small portion of our group in a local coffee shop to discuss Syria’s plight. Over half of the Syrian population lives outside of Syria and militant groups such as ISIS have taken control of large portions of land throughout the country. Many of the displaced Syrians have ended up as refugees throughout the larger region and even in Istanbul receive assistance from municipalities throughout the city. Services like education, housing, and medicine are provided through the local system and is paid and organized in a good faith fashion between Khoja and Turkey’s leaders. Khoja, however, mentioned that the amount of funding for these programs is nowhere near sufficient to meet the demand of refugees and aims at building his coalition of international support. This support ranges from numerous countries, among them the United States. The opposition’s agenda is heavily influenced by international politics and Khoja depends heavily on the United States’ political support. The opposition asked the U.S. to refine its definition of terror groups within Syria to include Assad’s military police that brutally repress and terrorize Syrians. However, any stricter political sanctions against Assad would be met negatively with the Iranians with whom the U.S. is engaged in supremely important nuclear peace talks. The precarious situation of Khoja’s opposition is heavily reliant on foreign support and constantly shifts; leaving Khoja with one hell of a job to do. Khoja discussed several scenarios, specifically ‘day after’ / ‘year after’ hypotheticals about how democracy and security would be established in Syria. It was an incredible conversation that spanned numerous pertinent issues. I somewhat wonder as to why he was willing to meet us, given our comparative low profile to other diplomatic responsibilities. I valued his time greatly and gained a lot by glimpsing into his world.