Turkish victims of 1978 Armenian terror attack remembered in Spain

The assassinated wife of a retired Turkish ambassador has been remembered in an event in Spain marking the 45th anniversary of her death at the hands of an Armenian terrorist group.

The commemoration event took place on Friday in Madrid, on Monte Esquinza street, where the attack in which JCAG terrorists killed Necla Kuneralp on June 2, 1978, took place.

Kuneralp, the wife of Türkiye's Ambassador to Spain Zeki Kuneralp, was assassinated along with her brother, retired Ambassador Besir Balcioglu, and the driver of her diplomatic vehicle, Antonio Torres.

It was just one of many assassinations of Turkish diplomats and family members around the world by Armenian terror groups ASALA and JCAG.

Azerbaijani and Pakistani also attended the event, where the Turkish Embassy’s Charge d'Affaires Ayse Zeybek said in an address that Armenian terror attacks have killed over 30 Turkish diplomats, public officials serving abroad and their families since the 1970s.

War against Türkiye

"We commemorate with respect our martyrs retired Ambassador Besir Balcioglu, and Necla Kuneralp, the spouse of Ambassador Zeki Kuneralp, assassinated by the Armenian terrorist organization JCAG in Madrid on 2 June 1978," Türkiye's Foreign Ministry said earlier on Friday.

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.

According to data compiled by Anadolu Agency, a total of 77 people – 58 of them Turkish citizens, including 31 diplomats and members of their families – were killed in attacks from 1973 to 1986 carried out by ASALA and ARA terrorist groups. The ARA is believed to be a continuation of the JCAG under a different name.

The deadly campaign began in 1973 with the assassination of Türkiye's Consul General in Los Angeles Mehmet Baydar and diplomat Bahadir Demir by a terrorist named Gourgen Yanikian.

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 Armenia diaspora rather than foreign partners, only targeted Türkiye because it believed that attacking other countries would damage the so-called "Armenian struggle."