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Hazel
ÇAĞAN ELBİR : CIA DECLASSIFIED THE DOCUMENTS ON THE COOPERATION
BETWEEN ASALA AND PKK
Commentary No : 2017 / 12
14.02.2017
United States’
foreign intelligence service CIA declassified the documents that showcase the
cooperation between ASALA (Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia)
and PKK (En. “Kurdistan Workers’ Party”) on 22 December 2016.
In the
documents that have been opened to internet users, besides the files that show
ASALA and PKK cooperation in the 1980s, a document of 5 July 1961 declares that
the Soviets had established two commando armies, one compromised of Kurdish
members and the other of Armenian members. Declassified CIA documents reveal
that, at that time, the trainings and organizations of the commando armies were
carried out in Ağrı Mountain and Yerevan.[1]
In a CIA
document from January 1984, ASALA appears to have cooperated with PKK on
planning the attack against the Turkish Consulate in Strasbourg on 10 November
1980.[2]
Many people
were aware that ASALA and PKK had been collaborating before the CIA documents
were declassified. In the chapter “The Kurdish Ally” of the book
titled Armenian Terrorism,
the Present and the Prospects by Francis P. Hyland, published in
1991, it is stated that the officials of ASALA and PKK announced that they were
planning to launch military operations against the Turkish authorities in a
joint press release. Since ASALA did not have headquarters in Turkey, it needed
PKK’s assistance in Turkey. Meanwhile, PKK needed to have ASALA’s training
assistance. Hyland’s book also covered events after 1980. The day after
November 10, an attack on the Turkish tourist office took place in Rome. Both
attacks had been undertaken by the ASALA-PKK cooperation. On 14 January 1982,
an explosion took place in Toronto at the Turkish Consulate of Toronto in
Canada. This attack also had been organized by the cooperation of the previously
named two organizations. After that, the spokesperson of ASALA, Hagop Hagopyan,
declared in March 1982 that they were “fighting
side by side with the Kurdish revolutionaries.”[3]
In addition to
the documents which are available for the internet users and recent works, on
the cooperation between Armenian and Kurdish groups with extremist ideologies,
Jordis Tejel Gorgas’s book titled Le
mouvement curule de Turquie en esil: continuités et du nationalesme kürde sous
le mandat français en Syrie et au Liban 1925 – 1946 deals with an
early example of such a cooperation. In this work, close associations between
the Hoybun Union (which defended the idea of Kurdish ethnic nationalism) and
the Armenian Dashnak Party, in 1925 and 1946, is discussed.[4] For detailed information about the book,
please see the book analysis prepared by Osman Gün in AVİM’s journal The Review of Armenian Studies.
The
declassifying of CIA documents regarding the cooperation between Armenian and
Kurdish groups with extremist ideologies has revealed surprising and
interesting pieces of information. The emergence of such documents has helped
in the documentation of a cooperation that was already known to exist. The
declassification of these documents carry much importance in this respect.
[1] CIA Library, “Kurdish and Armenian Commando Armies” https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/cia-rdp82-00457r007600040006-2
[2] CIA Library, “The Armenian Secret Army fort he
Liberation of Armenia: A Counting International Threat” https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP85T00283R000400030009-2.pdf
[3] Hyland, P. Francis. Armenian Terrorism, the Past, The Present and the
Prospects, Westview Press, 1991, s. 48.
[4] Book Review: Le
mouvement kürde de Turquie en exil: continuités et du nationalisme kürde sous
le mandat français en Syrie et au Liban 1925-1946, The Review of
Armenian Studies, Vol. 34. p. 157-162