by Nikos Doukas

The Turkish secret service, the notorious MIT, is according to all indications behind the attack on 27th October at the Armenian parliament and the assasination of the Armenian prime minister Vazgen Sarkisian. The armed agents who had taken over the Armenian parliament obviously were not acting independently. They had asked, in return for the hostages, a helicopter so that they could escape to Turkey. Sarkisian was one of the most fervent Armenian nationalists, commander of the volunteer group in the Nagorno Karabakh war during 1990-1992. In the last elections he was elected with an overwhelming majority (60%) as prime minister and enjoyed the trust of all Armenians. Turkey was extremely annoyed by his tough stance in the Nagorno Karabakh issue and the installation of S-300 missiles in Armenia. It is not at all a coincidence that the attack happened exactly after the arrival of the American envoyee Talbott from Erevan to Ankara, who carried the refusal of Sarkisian to concede any Armenian-held territory. So the Turkish president Demirel gave the green light to the Turkish secret service MIT to "eliminate" Sarkisian, just as they did in February 1999 with the Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan and in March 1994 with the Greek-Cypriot Theofilos Georgiadis.

Links Turkish Secret Service MIT

The involvement of Turkey was indirectly confirmed by the Azeri foreign minister Halaf Halafov, stating on 28th October in Reuters that "the assasination should be attributed to foreign powers that desired the failure of the negotiations over Nagorno Karabakh". The president of the Armenian National Committee in Cyprus Andranik Astzian stated on the 29th October in Cyprus Radio that "the leader of the terrorists Unanyan had "business" relations with Turkey". Another important clue is that Sarkisian was the architect of the Greek-Armenian defense cooperation. In 1997 we had published a relevant article under the title The treaty between Greece and Armenia "hurts" Ankara.