Kurultai (Iradi Freedom Society)

The Kurultai (Iradi: Kurultai, also Chong Kurultai, "great assembly") is the pan-clan assembly of the Iradi Freedom Society (IAC) and the highest forum of the Autonomous Tribal Regions (ATR) of Irad. Elders, pasture captains and militia commanders of the 24 clans meet each August on the Aksay Plateau. There they decide common defence, migration corridors, the moratorium on mining and relations with the Irad Special Economic Zone (ISEZ) and the United Nations. It has no written rules. Its procedure follows custom recorded by the Iradi Freedom Society Chancellery, and it decides by consensus rather than by vote.^[1]^[2]

Iradi historians trace the assembly to the joint councils of clans formed after the 1916 revolt. The present Kurultai dates from the session of late 2007 that turned the political council of the Popular Front of Irad into the IAC.^[1]

Membership

Each clan sends a delegation led by its biy or senior aksakal. Delegations usually include several elders (aksakals), the clan's pasture captain and the captain (choro bashı) of its El-Choro detachment. The seven judges of the Autonomous Tribal Grazing Arbitration Tribunal attend, and so does Bektur Zhumabek uulu, who speaks for the Tanıp and acts as the IAC's spokesman. The inner assembly numbers about 250 to 300 people. Several thousand herders camp around the grounds for the horse races and the ulak tournament.^[2]

Women are not delegates. Since 2021 a women's council meeting alongside the Kurultai may send written petitions, which the Chancellery's secretary reads to the assembly. Klara Zhumabek kyzy has argued for women's full participation. Human Rights Watch has criticized the absence of elections and of women from the assembly.^[3]

Procedure

Venue and seating

Ordinary sessions meet in the second or third week of August in a ring of white felt yurts at the Kurultai grounds on the plateau. The central assembly yurt is joined to awnings so that the whole body can sit together. Clans sit by seniority under the sanjyra. The place of honour (tör), opposite the entrance, belongs to the Karakoyun, whose founder the genealogies name as the eldest son of the common ancestor. The other clans sit outward from it in fixed order, and the Chancellery keeps the seating roll.^[1] Extraordinary sessions (kezeksiz kurultai) may be called in winter. They usually meet at the Kara-Suu Tribal Elders Council Hall or in the Kara-Koyun Valley.

Opening and blessing

The session opens with a bata from the eldest aksakal present, a role Biybolot Moldosh uulu of the Karakoyun has filled since 2015. A Syro-Iradi priest then prays in Iradi and censes the yurt with juniper smoke (arsha). Kymyz is shared, but no animal is killed, in keeping with the rejection of blood sacrifice in Iradi custom.^[4]

Speaking order

Business is put by the Chancellery's secretary. The clans then speak in reverse order of seniority, starting with the most junior delegation, so that juniors are not swayed by their elders. The Karakoyun speak last. The presiding Karakoyun elder then states the "sense of the assembly", and Bektur reports it to outsiders. Speeches are in Iradi and are often long. Proverbs and precedents, such as Muratbek Tanıp-Biy's Kara-Suu settlement, carry weight.^[2]

Consensus

A decision passes when no biy objects. A biy who cannot accept a proposal lays his whip (kamchy) on the felt in front of him, which stops the matter. He may instead "stand aside" (chetke turuu). The decision then passes, but his clan is excused from those of its terms that concern its own land. Decisions are sealed with a bata. The secretary writes them into the Kurultai ledger (kurultai depteri), and couriers carry them to clans whose delegates were absent.^[1]

The Chancellery's role

The Chancellery convenes ordinary and extraordinary sessions, sends the summonses by mounted courier and satellite telephone, and prepares the agenda. It drafts papers on trade contracts, the Naryn Water and Power Protocol and UN matters, and turns decisions into letters to the United Nations Mission in Irad. Since 2016 its secretary (katchı) has been Kubanychbek Toktobolot uulu, a co-founder of the banned Jer-Suu Party. The secretary has no vote and does not speak to the substance of a matter.^[5]

Notable sessions

2007. An extraordinary session on the plateau constituted the IAC, turned the Front's units into the El-Choro and created the Chancellery and the grazing tribunal.
2009. The August session approved the protocol on the Toktogul basin and the State Route 1 corridor, which gave up the dam and the basin floor in exchange for the high Kyrgyz Range pastures, grazing and water rights and a guaranteed share of the dam's revenue. The Kökjal stood aside.
2011. The August session approved the walkout of Bektur's delegation from the 2011 Bilateral Reunification Summit and kept its demand for representation in proportion to population.
2017. The session refused to admit DPI enumerators for the 2018 Irad census to clan territories.
2019. The assembly adopted a quota roll for trade contracts. The Boztorgoy stood aside rather than lay down the whip (see Clans of the Autonomous Tribal Regions).^[6]
2025. The session condemned remarks by the Gendarmerie commander about Fergana Rim Muslims. It also instructed the IAC delegation for the 2027 renewal of the Naryn Protocol, echoing Bektur's statement that the IAC would "not negotiate with a recording".^[7]

The long Kurultai of 2022

The best-known deadlock came in August 2022, during the renewal of the Naryn Protocol's five-year schedule. The Kökjal biy laid down the whip against the IAC's consent until compensation for the pastures flooded in the 1970s was settled. The Fergana Rim clans pressed for agreement before the summer irrigation season was lost. The assembly sat for nineteen days, the longest session on record.^[6] The deadlock was broken by three elders chosen from clans with no stake in the reservoir, led by Biybolot Moldosh uulu. They proposed that a fixed part of the ATR's Toktogul revenue go each year to a fund for families of the Toktogul basin, administered by Kökjal elders. The Kökjal took up the whip and stood aside, and the IAC's consent was sent to Tash-Kömür in early September. Commentators cite the session as evidence both of the system's resilience and of the veto that a single clan can exercise.^[8]

References

^ Talas State University Press (2018). Clan and Kurultai: Governance in the Autonomous Tribal Regions. Talas, pp. 88–131.
^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2019). Customary Institutions in the Autonomous Tribal Regions. Report to the Secretary-General, Talas.
^ Human Rights Watch (2022). Civil Liberties and Judicial Dualism in Divided Irad. New York, pp. 45–62.
^ Central Asian Cultural Studies Review (2020). 'Milk, Smoke and Felt: Ritual at the Iradi Clan Assemblies.' Vol. 12, pp. 88–106.
^ Iradi Freedom Society Chancellery (2022). Compendium of Customary Law (Adat) and Pasture Demarcations. Aksay Plateau.
^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2023). 'Nineteen Days on the Aksay: Consensus and Veto in the 2022 Kurultai.' Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 33–58.
^ Talas Herald (22 August 2025). 'Kurultai Sets Terms for 2027 Naryn Talks.' Talas.
^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2025). 'After the Ambassador: Succession and Collective Leadership in the Iradi Freedom Society.' Vol. 32, Iss. 3, pp. 140–162.