1981 Turkish consulate attack in Paris

The 1981 Turkish consulate attack (also known as Van Operation,Armenian: «Վան» գործողություն) was an attack on the Turkish consulate in Paris, France on September 24–25, 1981. According to a statement issued by Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia, army's militants demanded to release political prisoners in Turkey including two Armenian clergymen Father Manuel Yergatian and Pastor Hrant Guzelian and 10 non-Armenians.

The attack began about 11:30 a.m. when four members of Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia, calling themselves a "Yeghia Keshishian Suicide Commando", took over the consulate killing a Turkish guard, wounding the Turkish Consul and taking 56 people hostage, including 8 women and a 3-year-old child.

The consulate, a nine-story building on the Boulevard Haussmann, not far from the Arc de Triomphe, was surrounded by dozens of French policemen a few minutes after it was seized. Sharpshooters took up positions on buildings opposite the consulate, and the area was cordoned off by riot policemen, causing huge traffic jams. Several buildings adjoining the consulate were evacuated.

The gunmen, who said they were members of an organization called the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA), threatened to blow up the consulate building and everyone inside if the French police tried to intervene. According to The Sydney Morning Herald, "the guerillas sent out a Turkish official from the consulate" to hand over a paper containing their demands to police. At the same time, in a statement issued and delivered to the Reuters Beirut office during the siege, ASALA's "Suicide Commandos of Yeghia Kechichian" threatened that if Turkey did not release certain "Armenian political prisoners," and if French authorities intervened in the Consulate takeover, all of the hostages would be executed." The Turkish prisoners whose release the militants demanded were said to include two clergymen and five Turkish and five Kurdish "revolutionary fighters."