ASALA victim calls for friendship

The Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) was an Armenian terrorist organization that operated from 1975 until the early 1990s. It conducted a series of assassinations against Turks throughout the 1970 and 1980s, killing 46 and injuring 299 people. Some 42 of the assassinated were Turkish diplomats.

While Turkey has been locked on the genocide debate on the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Massacres, the victims of ASALA are totally forgotten. They are not mentioned at all, and no one asks them how they perceive the massacres and all of these debates.

Emin Balc?o?lu must be the right person to ask these questions. 

Why him? Because both Balc?o?lu?s father and aunt were assassinated by ASALA in 1978 in Madrid as they were driving. Yet what makes him more exceptional is the fact that he has totally purified himself of hatred. Moreover, he has been struggling for Turkish-Armenian friendship for decades.

Starting our conversation, Balc?o?lu said his mom had died only six months prior to the incident. He was only 26. ?All of a sudden I became the eldest in the family,? he says. However, what he experienced in the aftermath shook him even deeper.

?In those days, every time a Turkish diplomat was killed, state television TRT used to display the images of those who were killed previously, again and again. Therefore, I had to see my dad in blood and shot to ribbons at least 15 times, and each time I went through the same pain,? he said.

?I condemn this. I didn?t have to experience this,? he said.

He criticizes this also politically, saying TRT used these images as anti-Armenian propaganda. 

It was not just the media, but the state as well that acted insensibly. ?During my dad?s...