Türkiye remembers diplomat gunned down in Brussels in 1983

By Diyar Guldogan

ANKARA (AA) – The Turkish Foreign Ministry on Friday remembered a diplomat who was gunned down by an Armenian terrorist on the street outside his home in Brussels in 1983.

"We commemorate with respect our martyr Dursun Aksoy, Administrative Attache of the Embassy of Türkiye in Brussels, assassinated in a heinous attack by the Armenian terrorist organization ASALA on July 14, 1983," the ministry said on Twitter.

At 10.30 a.m. local time (0830GMT), as Aksoy was about to start his car outside his home, he was shot twice, in the neck and chest, by an Armenian terrorist. The 39-year-old Turkish diplomat died at the scene.

The attack was just one of the assassinations of Turkish diplomats and family members around the world by Armenian terror groups ASALA (Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia) and JCAG (Justice Commandos of the Armenian Genocide).

Since the 1970s, Armenian terror groups have killed 31 Turkish diplomats and family members.

ASALA, founded in 1975, was the first Armenian terror group to wage war against Türkiye, and the JCAG was founded the same year in Beirut.

ASALA not only targeted Türkiye but also other countries and became infamous for a 1975 bomb attack on the Beirut office of the World Council of Churches.

The JCAG, which claimed that it only got support from the Armenian diaspora rather than foreign partners, only targeted Türkiye because it believed that attacking other countries would damage the so-called "Armenian struggle."