ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Turkish former Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu announced Wednesday that he is leaving politics and dissolving his Gelecek Partisi (Future Party), framing the move as an ethical step away from a "decaying" system - not a surrender - while pledging to keep working for the country outside party politics.
In a four-page document shared on X, Davutoglu said he had decided to "withdraw from party politics and end the Future Party's political activities" so as not to remain part of what he described as Turkey's corrupted political climate.
He was careful to frame the decision as not "a decision of surrender" but rather "a decision to maintain moral distance."
Davutoglu's political trajectory took him from chief architect of Turkey's modern foreign policy to a prominent opposition leader. He entered politics as a chief advisor before serving as foreign minister from 2009 to 2014, during which he implemented his "Zero Problems with Neighbors" doctrine to expand Turkey's regional influence. He reached the peak of his political career when he was named Prime Minister of Turkey and leader of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), serving from 2014 to 2016.
Growing policy disagreements with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan over the centralization of presidential powers, however, led to his forced resignation in May 2016. After three years on the political sidelines, Davutoglu severed ties with the AKP entirely in 2019, criticizing its democratic backsliding, and founded the opposition Future Party to challenge his former allies.
His party currently holds four seats in parliament.
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