Originally published by Alik Daily (Tehran) on October 22, 2025.
50 years ago today, on October 22, 1975, Armenian revolutionaries assassinated Turkish Ambassador Huseyin Deniz Tunelcil in Vienna, and two days later, on October 24, theTurkish Ambassador to France, Ismail Erez, suffered the same fate.
A previously unknown underground organization, the Justice Commandos of the Armenian Genocide (JCAG), claimed responsibility for these acts of justice that were carried out with lightning speed and precision, shattering the world’s silence, and announcing the beginning of a new era in the Armenian people’s struggle for justice.
In a statement issued, at the time, by the Justice Commandos of the Armenian Genocide (JCAG), the group stated, in no uncertain terms, that, “We are the children of the Armenian people. We are acting for justice. Our acts against Turkish political representatives are a reminder to all states and governments of the world—large and small—that the “forgotten” Genocide of the Armenian People still remains unpunished.”
The JCAG statement, demanding recognition and condemnation of the Armenian Genocide–and a complete and just solution to the Armenian Question—further emphasized that all peaceful measures and initiatives aimed at resolving the Armenian Cause had been exhausted, having been met with a wall of indifference and silence from the international community. And, therefore, “these current realities remind us all that the only means left to us, in order to break that wall of silence and seek justice for the Armenian cause, is to resort to force and armed struggle.”
The Justice Commandos of the Armenian Genocide (JCAG) and their successors the Armenian Revolutionary Army (ARA) were able to return the Armenian Cause and the Armenian Genocide issue to the international political agenda through their actions in the 1970s and 1980s. Their targeted actions, directed primarily against high-ranking Turkish diplomats, forced the international community to pay attention to an historical injustice that had remained ignored and denied for decades.
As a result of their actions, the international press, also, began to speak more frequently and openly about the Armenian Cause and the Armenian Genocide as unresolved political and human rights issues, rather than simply painful historical facts.
The activities of the “Armed Wing of the Armenian Cause” also contributed to a political and ideological awakening in the Diaspora. The Justice Commandos and the Armenian Revolutionary Army became sources of inspiration for Diasporan Armenian youth, among whom a new self-awareness was forming, based on the interstices of historical memory, the demand for justice, national dignity, and, in particular, an ideological and political consciousness and purposeful struggle.
The armed struggle strengthened the ideological essence of the Armenian Cause, and the struggle for its resolution, finally, left the arena of previously exclusively diplomatic and academic efforts, turning the Armenian Cause into a movement worthy of pan-Armenian and international public attention. The targeted actions of these modern day freedom fighters came to be percieved, in the main, by the international community not as random acts of violence, but as a form of political pressure focused on confronting international indifference.
The fact that the targets of the Justice Commandos of the Armenian Genocide (JCAG) and their successors the Armenian Revolutionary Army (ARA) were Turkish state representatives or structures (with rare incidence of collateral civilian casualties), spoke–and today speaks–to the clarity of their goals, their cause, and the command/control level of their actions making the Armenian armed struggle more effective and more palatable to the international community.
The Turkish diplomatic system, which had previously successfully pursued a policy of denial and destruction, was forced to respond more openly on international platforms, thereby often revealing its contradictions, practically stimulating discussions on the issue of recognition of the Armenian Genocide in a variety of countries. As a result of all this, the voice of the Armenian people, which had remained unheard and ignored for decades, finally reached an international audience, forcing global players to take practical steps aimed at recognizing and condemning the Armenian Genocide, and in so doing sparking an Armenian renaissance.
When discussing the history and course of the armed struggle for the Armenian Cause, it is necessary to pay special attention to the important fact that the activities of the Justice Commandos of the Armenian Genocide (JCAG) and their successors the Armenian Revolutionary Army (ARA) had clear and foundational ideological bases and deep roots, which stretched back to the origins of the Armenian Revolution.
They were the direct heirs and bearers of the doctrine of the ideological father of the Armenian revolution–and of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation–Kristapor Mikaelyan, who realized that not only in words, but also in deeds, one must embody uncompromising dedication to the struggle for the complete liberation of Armenia and the Armenian people.
Kristapor Mikaelyan provided a clear definition of the Armenian Revolution—
“The Armenian revolutionary movement is nothing else if not a necessary, natural consequence of combined economic and historical-political causes...” And, they set to work realizing that “desires are not what give life its course,” and that “the budding of the first blooms [in a struggle] do not signify full and ripe blossoms…” An unbreakable will, perseverance, and goal-oriented, constant struggle “can promise us much…”
“Haradev Greev, [constant, unabated struggle]–herein lies the key to our salvation… Let us not depart from that singular path, which is strewn with “flowers” of a hopeful future…”
These stalwarts of the armed struggle came to prove, with their work, that among the vain and futile attempts at “silence,” “prudence,” “benevolent submission,” and all the passive and timid messages about “adapting,” only the voice of strength and force can reach the “civilized world.”
As Kristapor Mikaelyan, again, noted—
“There are moments in the lives of people when it is possible to put up with everything, but it is not possible to put up with silence… Complete silence can only mean the complete moral decline of an entire nation and the complete bankruptcy of revolutionary ideas, the revolutionary movement…”
“No act of violence, no persecutionn, no border of any kind, can divide a people, if they, driven by the awareness of their common interests and goals, combined with the boundless will to come together and fight—for one goal, one completeness, for uncompromising revolutionary struggle…”
And, today, after five decades, when the enemy’s expansionist ambitions have flared up, again, and are raging; when we have [again] lost an integral part of our Homeland—Artsakh; when the depression of defeat continues to wear away the minds and souls of our people and the situation often seems irreversible; when the current anti-national authorities of Armenia are trying, at all costs, to crush the spirit of struggle and resistance among our people, forcing them to adapt to existing conditions and give in to the whims of the enemy–more than ever we need to restore, in our souls, the fighting spirit of the warriors of justice and to renew and redefine, in our minds, the timeless ideological principles of the Armenian revolution.
When people refuse to fight for their cause and just rights, they will inevitably be exposed to the enemy’s demands for successive concessions, and will no longer be able to resist.
Let us not forget the timeless message of Kristapor Mikaelian—
“A people cannot wait for help from the outside world, with endless plaintive cries and protestations…
The thunderous roar of constant struggle, of battle–the sacred ideas of sacrifice and dedication—are what express a people’s vitality, its mores and values… These are what inspire respect for a nation and guarantee both its solidarity and its moral right to live for itself…”
(Translated from the original Armenian)
