Former Turkish ambassador to Vienna killed by ASALA, JCAG commemorated

Turkey on Thursday commemorated its diplomat who was killed in an Oct. 22, 1975 terrorist attack in Vienna, Austria.

"We remember with respect our martyr, Ambassador Daniş Tunalıgil, assassinated in a heinous attack by the terrorist organizations ASALA and JCAG in Vienna on 22 October 1975," the Foreign Ministry said on Twitter.

A total of 31 Turkish diplomats and their family members have been killed around the world by Armenian terrorist groups.

The vast majority of the attacks were conducted by the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) and the Justice Commandos of the Armenian Genocide (JCAG) terrorist groups.

The bloody attacks started back in 1973 with the assassination of Consul General Mehmet Baydar and Consul Bahadır Demir in Los Angeles by Gourgen Yanikian, an Armenian.

Founded in 1975 in Beirut, Lebanon, during the Lebanese Civil War, the ASALA is responsible for hundreds of bloody terror acts. According to "Armenian Terror," a 2006 study by Ömer Engin Lütem, a former Turkish diplomat, the killings spanned continents, taking place in the U.S., Austria, France, Italy, Spain, Lebanon, Greece, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Canada, Portugal, Iran and the U.K.

While the Marxist-Leninist ASALA not only targeted Turkey but also other countries and became infamous for a 1975 bombing on the Beirut office of the World Council of Churches, the nationalistic JCAG only targeted Turkey because it believed that attacking other countries would damage the so-called "Armenian struggle."

Armenian terrorist attacks intensified from 1980 to 1983, when 580 of the 699 attacks – over 80% – occurred.

During a ceremony in memory of Tunalıgil, the Turkish Embassy in Vienna condemned the terrorist attack on its 45th anniversary on Thursday.

Speaking at the event, Ankara's envoy to Vienna, Ozan Ceyhun, noted that Tunalıgil was the first Turkish ambassador killed by ASALA and JCAG.

"Although this sordid attack committed by Armenian terrorists took place 45 years ago, as the members of Turkey's Vienna Embassy, we live through this event every day, whenever we go through the rooms, offices of this building; we condemn the perpetrators of it," Ceyhun said.

Pointing to the fact that the terrorists have never been captured or punished for their crimes, Ceyhun said the incident is still quite painful for the families of the victims.