The Syrian offshoot of the PKK terrorist group formed a new terror outfit comprising of foreign terrorists on Wednesday, including those of Armenian descent, in areas it occupies within territories of Syria.
The terrorist group founded by the People's Protection Forces (YPG) was named after Armenian terrorist Nubar Ozanyan and formed in the wake of France declaring April 24 as a day of commemoration of the events of 1915.
The YPG/PKK declared the organization's intention to be "the defense of Rojava against Turkey," referring to the predominantly Kurdish northern and eastern Syria currently occupied by the terrorist group, and that it embraced the terrorist Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) as its precursor.
Accordingly, the so-called battalion comprised of 90 fighters will operate in northern Syria's Qamishli, Hassakah, Ras al-Ain, Amude, Tal Abyad and Ain al-Arab.
In its more than 30-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK -- listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the EU -- has been responsible for the deaths of nearly 40,000 people, including women and children.
Founded in 1975 in Beirut, Lebanon, during the Lebanese Civil War, ASALA is responsible for hundreds of bloody terror acts.
During 1975-1984, ASALA killed over 30 Turkish diplomats and officials in various attacks. The Armenian terrorist acts intensified from 1980 to 1983, when 580 of the 699 attacks occurred. The terrorist attacks ended in 1986.
The attack at Esenboğa airport on Aug. 7, 1982, was one of the most notorious attacks of ASALA, as the group targeted non-diplomat civilians for the first time.
Nine people died and over 80 were injured when two terrorists opened fire in a crowded passenger waiting area of the airport in the Turkish capital Ankara.
The 1981 and 1983 Paris attacks are among the group's other notable acts. ASALA terrorists held 56 people hostage for 15 hours during Turkish Consulate attack in 1981, while a suitcase bomb killed eight people – most of them non-Turks – in 1983 at a Turkish Airlines check-in desk at Paris Orly Airport.
Ozanyan was killed in 2017, fighting for the YPG/PKK as the so-called Middle East commander of the outlawed Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist–Leninist (TKP/ML TIKKO), a sub-group which carried out assassinations and bombings and clashes with security forces in Turkey.
Turkey's position on the events of 1915 is that the deaths of Armenians in eastern Anatolia took place when some sided with invading Russians and revolted against Ottoman forces. A subsequent relocation of Armenians to Syria, then part of the Ottoman Empire and relatively far from the Eastern Front, resulted in numerous casualties. Syria houses a significant Armenian population including the descendants of Ottoman Armenians relocated to the country.
Turkey objects to the presentation of these incidents as "genocide," describing them as a tragedy in which both sides suffered casualties.