List of Turkish diplomats assassinated by Armenian militant organisations

Ahmet Benler's Volkswagen

This is a list of Turkish diplomats and other officials assassinated by Armenian militant organisations. The Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) and Justice Commandos of the Armenian Genocide (JCAG) were Armenian nationalist militant groups^[1] that targeted Turkish diplomats and officials in Europe, the Middle East, and North America in a series of bombings, shootings, and other attacks.^[2] The group aimed to draw international attention to the Armenian genocide and to pressure Turkey to acknowledge the killings as a genocide.^[3] The attacks resulted in the deaths of dozens of people, including Turkish diplomats, embassy staff, and bystanders, and injured many more.^[4] The group's actions were widely condemned by the international community including the Reagan administration that labelled the assassinations as terrorism.^[5][6][7] In the following years, the international community's response led to a wave of arrests and extraditions of ASALA members.^[8][9] The ASALA and JCAG attacks and the Armenian genocide remain highly sensitive and controversial topics in Turkey,^[10] and discussions of the events are often met with strong emotions and heated political debates.^[11] Despite this, the attacks serve as a reminder of the ongoing tensions and historical wounds that continue to affect Armenian-Turkish relations to this day.^[12]

List of ambassadors

Ambassador	Status	Diplomatic mission	Assassination date	Ref.
İsmail Erez	Fully accredited	Paris, France	24 October 1975	[13][14][15]
Daniş Tunalıgil	Fully accredited	Vienna, Austria	27 October 1975	[16]
Taha Carım	Fully accredited	Vatican City	9 June 1977	[17]
Beşir Balcıoğlu	Not active	Madrid, Spain	2 June 1978	[18]
Galip Balkar	Fully accredited	Belgrade, Serbia	9 March 1983	[19]

List of high-ranking diplomats

Diplomat	Title	Diplomatic mission	Assassination date	Ref.
Mehmet Baydar	Consul general	Santa Barbara, California	27 January 1973	[8]
Bahadır Demir	Consul
Oktar Cirit	First secretary	Beirut, Lebanon	16 February 1976	[20][21]
Şarık Arıyak	Consul general	Sydney, Australia	17 December 1980	[22][23][24]
Kemal Arıkan	Consul general	Los Angeles, California	28 January 1982
Orhan Gündüz	Honorary consul general	Los Angeles, California	4 May 1982

List of security officials

Individual	Military rank	Title	Diplomatic mission	Assassination date	Ref.
Talip Yener	N/A	Driver	Paris, France	24 October 1975	[25]
Engin Sever	N/A	Security attaché	Sydney, Australia	17 December 1980	[22][23][24]
Cemal Özen	N/A	Security attaché	Paris, France	24 September 1981
Atilla Altıkat	Air Force Colonel	Military attaché	Ottawa, Canada	27 August 1982	[26]

List of general staff

Diplomat	Title	Diplomatic mission	Assassination date	Ref.
Yılmaz Çolpan	Tourism counsellor	Paris, France	22 December 1979	[27]
Galip Özmen	Administrative attaché	Athens, Greece	31 July 1980	[28][29][30]
Reşat Moralı	Labour attaché	Paris, France	4 March 1981
Tecelli Arı	Religion officer	Paris, France
Mehmet Savaş Yergüç	Secretary	Geneva, Switzerland	9 June 1981
Erkut Akbay	Administrative attaché	Lisbon, Portugal	7 June 1982	[31]
Bora Süelkan	Administrative attaché	Burgas, Bulgaria	9 September 1982
Dursun Aksoy	Administrative attaché	Brussels, Belgium	14 July 1983	[32][33][34]
Erdoğan Özen	Labour attaché	Vienna, Austria	20 June 1984
Evner Ergun	United Nations officer	Vienna, Austria	19 November 1984

List of family members

Individual	Relation	Diplomatic mission	Assassination date	Ref.
Necla Kuneralp	Spouse of incumbent ambassador	Madrid, Spain	2 June 1978	[18]
Ahmet Benler	Son of incumbent ambassador	The Hague, Netherlands	12 October 1979	[35]
Neslihan Özmen	Daughter of incumbent administrative attaché	Athens, Greece	31 July 1980	[28][29][30]
Nadide Akbay	Spouse of incumbent administrative attaché	Lisbon, Portugal	11 January 1983	[36]
Cahide Mıhçıoğlu	Spouse of incumbent charge d'affaires	Lisbon, Portugal	27 July 1983	[37]
Işık Yönder	Spouse of a secretary	Tehran, Iran	28 April 1984	[38]

Further reading

• Peterson, Merrill D. (2004). "Starving Armenians" : America and the Armenian Genocide, 1915-1930 and after. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. ISBN 0-8139-2267-4. OCLC 52901294.
• Howard, Douglas A. (2001). The history of Turkey. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. p. 161. ISBN 0-313-00240-1. OCLC 50321768.
• Singer, Amy; Neumann, Christoph K.; Somel, Selçuk Akşin (2011). Untold histories of the Middle East : recovering voices from the 19th and 20th centuries. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. p. 27. ISBN 978-0-203-84536-3. OCLC 658189067.
• Hoffman, Bruce (2017). Inside terrorism. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 71. ISBN 978-0-231-17476-3. OCLC 971893153.
• Jessup, John E. (1998). An encyclopedic dictionary of conflict and conflict resolution, 1945-1996. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. p. 39. ISBN 0-313-04676-X. OCLC 57582519.
• Wieviorka, Michel (1993). The making of terrorism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 256. ISBN 0-226-89650-1. OCLC 28111107.
• Göçek, Fatma Müge (2011). The transformation of Turkey : redefining state and society from the Ottoman Empire to the modern era. London: I.B. Tauris. p. 151. ISBN 978-0-85771-968-3. OCLC 740225800.

See also

• Turkish consulate attack in Paris
• Esenboğa Airport attack
• 1983 Orly Airport attack
• List of attacks by ASALA
• List of attacks by JCAG

References

1. Francis P. Hyland, Armenian Terrorism: the Past, the Present, the Prospects, Boulder-San Francisco-Oxford: Westview Press, 1991, pp. 61–62;
2. Gaïdz Minassian, Guerre et terrorisme arméniens, Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 2002, pp. 32–34 and 106–109.
3. "Diplomat memorial stirs controversy". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 21 September 2012. Archived from the original on 1 March 2014. Retrieved 20 December 2014.
4. "Das Armenier-Problem, Behauptungen – Tatsachen". Archived from the original on 11 January 2012. Retrieved 22 January 2022.
5. Fortier, Donald. "Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Digital Library Collections, Collection: "Fortier, Donald: Files," Folder Title: "Turkish Armenian File: [US Department of State Remarks on the Armenian Genocide]," Box: RAC Box 19" (PDF). Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. pp. 8–10, 42. Retrieved 16 December 2021.
6. United States Department of State. Patterns of Global Terrorism Report: 1989 Archived 2014-02-19 at the Wayback Machine, p 57
7. Michel Wieviorka, David Gordon White. The making of terrorism. University of Chicago Press, 1993. ISBN 0-226-89650-1, ISBN 978-0-226-89650-2, p. 256
8. "Beaver County Times - Google News Archive Search". news.google.com. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
9. von John E. Jessup (1998). An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Conflict and Conflict Resolution, 1945–1996. Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 39–40, 543, 841. ISBN 0-313-28112-2.
10. Rubin, Barry M.; Rubin, Judith Colp (2008). Chronologies of Modern Terrorism. M.E. Sharpe. ISBN 978-0-7656-2206-8.
11. Gottschlich, Jürgen (2015). Beihilfe zum Völkermord: Deutschlands Rolle bei der Vernichtung der Armenier (in German). Ch. Links Verlag. ISBN 978-3-86153-817-2.
12. Morris, Benny (2019). The thirty-year genocide : Turkey's destruction of its Christian minorities, 1894-1924. Dror Zeʼevi. Cambridge, Massachusetts. ISBN 978-0-674-91645-6. OCLC 1044768992.
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19. Terrorist Group Profiles. ISBN 1-56806-864-6. August 1989, p. 53
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24. Cormack, Lucy (13 August 2020). "'Calculated act of terror:' Police divers find clues in 40-year-old assassination mystery". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
25. Barry Rubin, Barry M. Rubin, Judith Colp Rubin, "Chronologies of modern terrorism Archived 2016-12-28 at the Wayback Machine, M.E. Sharpe, 2008, p. 69
26. "Monument honoring Turkish diplomat opens in Ottawa". Hürriyet Daily News. 21 September 2012. Archived from the original on 31 October 2018. Retrieved 20 December 2014.
27. "Incident Summary for GTDID: 197912220006". UMD Global Terrorism Database. National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. Archived from the original on 31 October 2018. Retrieved 31 October 2018.
28. "Turkish Envoy Is Slain in Athens". The New York Times. 1 August 1980. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
29. "Turk killed in Greece The Spokesman Review - Google News Archive Search". news.google.com. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
30. Melkonian, Markar (2008). My Brother's Road: an American's Fateful Journey to Armenia. I.B. Tauris & Company, Limited. pp. 84–85. ISBN 1-84511-530-9.
31. "AROUND THE WORLD; Turkish Envoy in Lisbon Is Killed by Gunman". The New York Times. Reuters. 8 June 1982. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 14 January 2022.
32. Upi (15 July 1983). "AROUND THE WORLD; Turk Slain in Brussels; Armenians Claim Deed". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 14 January 2022.
33. "The Montreal Gazette - Google News Archive Search". news.google.com. Retrieved 14 January 2022.
34. "Sarasota Herald-Tribune - Google News Archive Search". news.google.com. Retrieved 14 January 2022.
35. "Incident Summary for GTDID: 197910120003". UMD Global Terrorism Database. National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. Archived from the original on 31 October 2018. Retrieved 31 October 2018.
36. Ap (11 January 1983). "Turk Wounded in June Attack By Armenian Terrorists Dies". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 14 January 2022.
37. "Ermeni terör örgütleri 31 Türk diplomat ve yakınını şehit etti". www.trthaber.com (in Turkish). 22 October 2022. Retrieved 28 March 2023.
38. "Zonguldaklı ASALA Şehidi". Zonguldak Pusula Son Dakika Haberleri (in Turkish). Retrieved 28 March 2023.