In his interview with the Sabah newspaper (Turkey), Nuri Gündeş, who was head of the Istanbul Department of the Turkish National Intelligence Service in 1980s, disclosed some of the details of the activities carried out by the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA).

Gündeş, who was at the head of the struggle against ASALA in 1980, called “black PR” the conviction that the organization left the “battlefield” because of internal schisms. Pleading the case is a state secret and without going into details, he said that the Intelligence Service could, to a certain extent, suspend ASALA’s bloody activities both inside and outside the country. The facts proving the destruction of the organization are in the official records, but they are kept secret to prevent international problems.

Gündeş cited an example of psychological warfare against ASALA: “In Paris, we drew a skeleton… on Ara Toranyan’s car. I think we thus could prevent his further actions. We also planted a bomb in his car, not to murder him, but to frighten him. We are sure it worked then.”

ASALA was founded in 1975. The stated intention of ASALA was “to compel the Turkish Government to acknowledge publicly its responsibility for the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915, pay reparations, and cede territory for an Armenian homeland.” It mainly aimed its attacks against Turkish diplomats, officials, embassies, Turkish Airlines offices, as well as against foreign institutions that provided financial or military aid to Turkey.