This paper analyzes the “Democratic Autonomy Model” foreseen by the Kurdish Movement in Turkey through the conception of Non-Territorial Autonomy (NTA). Although significant majority of Eastern and South-Eastern Turkey is populated by Kurds, the conditions of forced or economically pushed migration obliged them to live dispersedly within the boundaries of Turkey. Therefore, territorial based/state-led models offer no longer a viable solution for the Kurdish quest. In other words, former land-based Kurdistan quest in Turkey turned into the Kurdish quest, a more complex issue covering both land and rights. Still, neither territorial nor non-territorial rights-based solutions are sufficient in order to ameliorate the situation. A comprehensive political model of ‘Democratic Autonomy’ has been generated by the Democratic Society Congress (a platform that brings Kurdish non-governmental organizations together) in order to overcome the traps enforced by the nation-state framework. This is an intertwined model which proposes a relatively territorial autonomy rather than a secession of the dominantly Kurdish region and a non-territorial rights-based autonomy for Kurds living all around Turkey. The draft model of the Congress comprises eight dimensions such as political, legal, self-defensive, cultural, social, economic, ecological, and diplomatic. This study aims to scrutinize the Democratic Autonomy Model by exploring its contradictions and similarities to the concept of NTA. As the Kurdish Movement in Turkey puts it as a ‘radical-democratic’ model to transform the nation-state structure, I will question the conditions of possibility of an NTA model for the Kurds in Turkey considering the recent developments in the Middle East and the Arab Spring. It is a matter of debate whether the path to territorial sovereignty taken by Kurds in Iraq and Syria and the escalation of the armed conflict in Turkey would affect the terms of this non-territorial autonomy proposal.
