Subhi Bey Barakat

Subhi Bey Barakat al-Khalidi or Suphi Bereket (Arabic: صبحي بك بركات الخالدي‎‎ Turkish: Suphi Bereket; 1889, Antioch – 1939, Turkey) was a Syrian politician from Antioch, born into a family of Turkish origin. During the French Mandate of Syria, he was the president of the Syrian Federation (28 June 1922 – 31 December 1924) and the State of Syria (1 January 1925 – 21 December 1925).

Part of the reason the French supported his candidacy as president of the Syrian Federation was because as neither a native of Damascus nor a very strong Arabic speaker (Turkish was his mother tongue), he did not seem to pose a nationalist threat to French rule.

Initially he was a partner of Ibrahim Hanano in his revolt. He played a major role in merging the States of Aleppo and Damascus into one state, and he quit the presidency of Syria in 1925 in protest to the French position regarding the fate of the Alawite and Druze States, which France refused to add to Syria because it feared that might endanger the independence of the newly created Lebanon.

Barakat was married to Halide; their daughter Süheyla Mukbile married Turkish politician Refik Koraltan and Zehra married Turkish politician Vahit Melih Halefoğlu.