For several decades, Kurdish civil society actors in Europe identified innovative political spaces, pursued alternative options for collective mobilization, and articulated less openly segregationist and nationalist principles in pursuit of political goals. An emphasis on cultural recognition including language rights led to increasing levels of collaboration among Kurdish activists in Europe. The Diaspora Kurdish movement's critical examination of Turkey's conduct toward the Kurdish minority served as a constant reminder that the implementation of legal and political reforms had yet to be realized. Europe's Kurds predominantly pursued ethnic and cultural recognition for Kurdish communities inside Turkey and for themselves in Europe. To achieve this aim, they utilized legal training and technological skills. At the same time, demands for a territory-bound Kurdish homeland were fading away in Europe. Ethnic Kurdish citizens in Europe, and in particular their European-born children, had little incentive to physically relocate to an impoverished 'Kurdistan' that lacked employment opportunities, basic amenities, and the requisite technological infrastructure. The emergence of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has created new political opportunities for Kurds in a broadly defined democratic sense. But these new political opportunities for Kurds in Iraq also weakened the once powerful influences of Kurdish Diaspora activists on Kurdish mobilization inside Turkey. Their dominance over both militant and civically engaged Kurds in Turkey has ended since Kurdish leaders in Turkey are less interested in developing common political strategies in collaboration with the Kurdish Diaspora. Instead, Turkey's Kurds seem to prefer alternative political strategies by looking to strengthen their relationship with the KRG. The presenter will examine these new dynamics and their influences on relationships between Kurdish leaders in Europe and in Turkey. The central question guiding this presentation will be focused on the KRG as a competitor to the political sway of Diaspora Kurds. Leaders within the Kurdish Diaspora assumed for a long time that Turkey's pursuit of full membership in the EU would eventually push the country to commit to a multiethnic and multicultural social construct. But Turkey's Kurds seem to look toward the KRG rather than the European Union for inspiration and political leverage.