For decades, the call for a Kurdish National Congress has recurred in political and intellectual debates within Kurdish society. It symbolizes aspirations for national unity, collective self-determination, and political sovereignty. Yet historical experience demonstrates with striking clarity that all previous attempts to establish such a congress have either failed or produced no lasting political impact. This repeated failure is not the result of a lack of political will. Rather, it reflects deep structural, geopolitical, and institutional constraints that render a national congress today not only complex and slow to materialize, but largely impractical as an effective political instrument.
One of the core reasons lies in the historically entrenched territorial fragmentation of Kurdistan. Since the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, Kurdistan has ceased to exist as a unified political subject and has been divided among four sovereign states: Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. This division is not merely territorial; it has generated profoundly divergent political, legal, and security environments. While institutional autonomy exists in northern Iraq, Kurdish political activity in Turkey and Iran is largely criminalized, and in Syria it remains highly contingent on unstable and shifting power configurations. A national congress, however, presupposes a shared political space, legal safeguards, and predictable conditions for collective decision-making. These prerequisites are currently absent. Any unified national body would inevitably expose certain parts of Kurdistan to heightened political risk while structurally constraining others.
Internal fragmentation further weakens collective political capacity
Beyond territorial division, Kurdish politics is marked by significant party-political fragmentation. Divergent ideological traditions, unresolved historical conflicts, external alliances, and competing power interests continue to shape relations among Kurdish parties. Institutional mechanisms capable of integrating dissent and managing conflict in a sustained and constructive manner remain underdeveloped. Under such conditions, a national congress would struggle to function as a neutral forum for consensus-building. Instead, it would likely become a symbolically charged arena of party competition, in which disputes over representation, legitimacy, and leadership would produce paralysis rather than unity.
Kurdish politics therefore operates across four states under fundamentally different - and often repressive - conditions, while remaining internally fragmented at the same time. A national congress requires a shared political space and effective mechanisms of integration, both of which are currently lacking. Under these circumstances, such a body would be more likely to concentrate conflicts than to resolve them.
External pressure reinforces internal divisions and constrains institutional options
These internal challenges are further intensified by sustained external pressure. Iran, Iraq, Syria and Syria, despite their mutual rivalries, share a structural interest in preventing Kurdish national institutionalization. Based on the context, this interest is pursued through repression, political manipulation, military intervention, or the deliberate instrumentalization of intra-Kurdish divisions. This regional dynamic is compounded by the interest-driven policies of international actors such as the European states, Russia and the United States, whose engagement with Kurdish actors is shaped primarily by strategic utility rather than durable partnership.
The experience of Northeast Syria (Rojava) demonstrates that neither democratic credentials nor military contribution provide lasting protection when they conflict with broader geopolitical priorities.
Symbolic unity cannot substitute for strategic coordination
Against this backdrop, the classical national congress appears poorly suited to the political realities of a fragmented and transnational context. A common counterargument is that abandoning the immediate goal of a national congress risks weakening the symbolic claim to Kurdish national unity. Yet historical experience suggests the opposite: when institutional form outpaces political capacity, symbols lose credibility.
In this sense, postponing a national congress does not dilute the idea of unity but protects it from premature institutionalization. National congresses tend to respond after critical developments have already occurred, generating declarations, resolutions, and symbolic unity while lacking operational instruments for crisis prevention or timely intervention. The escalations in Rojava, Shingal (Sinjar), and Kobane illustrate that political effectiveness in moments of acute crisis depends less on representational symbolism than on rapid coordination, strategic analysis, and international engagement. A national congress would have been unable to prevent or decisively influence these dynamics.
Regional and international actors share a structural interest in preventing Kurdish national institutionalization, while national congresses themselves are slow and operationally weak. The lesson from recent crises is clear: symbolic unity cannot replace strategic capacity.
A Kurdish security and strategy council
This analysis points toward the need for alternative institutional models that better reflect the realities of Kurdish politics. In this context, a Kurdish security and strategy council represents a more realistic and functionally effective option. Its legitimacy and effectiveness depend on operating not against, but with the explicit consent and active participation of Kurdish parties, movements, and relevant institutions.
Unlike a national congress, a Kurdish security and strategy council would not be designed for symbolic representation, but intended as a permanent structure for strategic coordination and analysis. It neither claims the role of an exile government nor aspires to state-like authority, but instead functions as a transnational platform for enhancing collective political capacity.
Functional coordination matters more than symbolic representation
The primary task of the security and strategy council would be the early analysis of political developments, systematic risk assessment, and the networking of Kurdish actors across territorial and party-political boundaries. Critics may argue that a body without formal decision-making power risks political irrelevance. However, in fragmented and highly constrained political environments, influence rarely derives from formal authority alone. Rather, it emerges from the ability to coordinate actors, shape agendas, and intervene at critical moments before political or military dynamics become irreversible.
The council’s legitimacy derives not from formal representation, but from practical performance and from a jointly conferred political mandate by Kurdish parties and institutions. A further concern is the potential for elitism or democratic opacity. This risk can be mitigated through the Council’s limited mandate, its lack of formal decision-making authority, and its accountability to the parties and organizations that grant its mandate. Transparency toward these actors, rather than public spectacle, becomes the central mechanism of control.
This mandate does not entail a transfer of political sovereignty. It represents a clearly limited delegation of specific functions. Political parties remain the primary actors in shaping political will, making programmatic decisions, and mobilizing society. The Council, by contrast, assumes a coordinating, mediating, and analytical role.