At a time when Azerbaijan and Turkey are calling for lasting peace in the region, including the normalization of relations between Baku and Yerevan, and Ankara and Yerevan, the notorious Armenian terrorist organization ASALA is issuing threats to Azerbaijan and Turkey.
The terrorist organization released a statement dedicated to the 47th anniversary of its creation that was disseminated by state officials and media outlets in Armenia.
The Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia, or ASALA, called on the Armenian nation to overcome what it called the “darkest and most difficult period” of Armenia’s recent history. The terrorist organization is convinced that the defeat in the 44-day war against Azerbaijan in the Karabakh region in 2020 dragged Armenia into the current plight of the state and people.
ASALA blamed the Armenian authorities for betraying the “spiritual and national values” of the Armenian people and the sovereignty of Armenia by entering into a dialogue with Azerbaijan and Turkey. It has threatened to block bilateral agreements between Baku and Yerevan, and Ankara and Yerevan, and create challenges for regional cooperation.
Baku and Yerevan agreed to unblock the regional communications, including the restoration of a railway connection between Azerbaijan's mainland and its Nakhchivan exclave through the territory of Armenia. Azerbaijan will allow Armenia to use railway connections with Iran and Russia via the country’s territory. In the meantime, Turkey and Armenia took steps of rapprochement including the recent meeting of special representatives in Moscow and the resumption of round-trip flights starting on February 2, 2022.
Despite the high-level attempts aimed at normalizing Armenia’s relations with its neighbors, ASALA, which is classified as a terrorist organization by the United States, has vowed unwavering commitment to two ultimate goals, including the so-called liberation of imaginary “Western Armenia” and building the integrity of Armenia, i.e., illegal territorial claims against Turkey and Azerbaijan.
The roots of Armenian terror go back to the 19th century when groups such as Armenian, Hunchak, and Armenian Revolutionary Federation Dashnaktsutiun (ARFD) utilized terror as the primary way of fighting against their perceived enemies. The first terrorist attack attributed to Armenian groups was committed by ARFD in the Ottoman Central Bank in 1896.
The modern twist of the early Armenian terrorist organizations was ASALA. Created in Lebanon in 1975, ASALA set its goals to force Turkey to admit its guilt for the so-called self-invented “Armenian Genocide.” The terrorist organization also believes that the eastern parts of Turkey, namely the Eastern Anatolia region should be part of the so-called fictional state of “Great Armenia.”
ASALA organized and committed dozens of terrorist attacks around the world, including in Austria, France, Germany, Vatican, Turkey, Switzerland, Russia, Spain, Greece, the Netherlands, Denmark, the United States and other countries. The last and most recent attack claimed by ASALA took place at the Turkish Embassy in Brussels, Belgium in 1997. Since the 1970s, 31 Turkish ambassadors fell to ASALA terror.
In Armenia, ASALA members were heroes fighting for the Armenian "ideals". Armenian poet Silva Kaputikyan dedicated her "It's raining my sonny" poem to the memory of Levon Ekmekjian, an ASALA member, who masterminded the attack on Esenboğa International Airport in Turkey's capital Ankara in 1983.
ASALA is convinced that the Karabakh and the East Zangazur regions of Azerbaijan should also be incorporated into the so-called “Great Armenia”. It has irreversibly supported the illegal separatist regime deployed in the once occupied Azerbaijani territories both during the years of occupation and the war in 2020.
Reports of ASALA terrorists on the ground in the Second Karabakh War were also confirmed.
On September 28, 2020, on the second day of the 44-day war in the Karabakh region, Azerbaijani ambassador to Turkey, Khazar Ibrahim stated that Armenia deployed and weaponized terrorists from ASALA and the Kurdish terrorist organization PKK to fight against the Azerbaijani forces. On October 3, the Turkish bureau of the US news channel CNN Turk published footage that claimed the PKK terrorists were fighting alongside the ASALA militants and Armenia's Army in ongoing battles in the Karabakh region.
In March 2021, the ASALA inscription has been discovered on the opposite side of the sleeve chevrons of the uniforms of the Armenian soldiers. In May of the same year, the sapper units of the Azerbaijan Armed Forces have found an ASALA flag in a cache that was built by the Armenian forces in the once occupied Sugovushan town of the Tartar district.
Before the war, Armenians hoisted an ASALA flag on the former Line of Contact between the Armenian and Azerbaijani militaries in the Tartar district since 2011.
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