Mehmet Baydar

Mehmet Baydar (1924 – January 27, 1973) was a Turkish diplomat who was assassinated by an Armenian origin US citizen Gourgen Yanikian in Santa Barbara, California in 1973.

Early life

He was born in Istanbul in 1924. After finishing Robert College and Law school of Istanbul University, he studied in the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris of Paris University. In 1950, he entered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs service.

Career

After serving one year in the Economics Department, he was appointed to the newly established NATO Department of the ministry. In 1960, he was appointed as the chief secretary in the Turkish Embassy in Washington DC, USA. In 1966, he returned to Ankara to serve in the CENTO Department. In 1972, he became the chief consul in Los Angeles, California. His service area included the most of the western states of the United States.

Assassination

On January 27, 1973, the 77-year-old Gourgen Yanikian, under the alias of an Iranian man named Yaniki, met with Baydar and vice-consul Bahadır Demir at the Biltmore Hotel in Santa Barbara, promising to make a gift of a bank note and a painting stolen from the Ottoman palace more than a century earlier to Turkey.[1] As the three men began to converse over lunch, Yanikian revealed to them that he was not Iranian, but Armenian and a survivor of the Armenian Genocide.[2] Baydar dropped the bank note in anger and a heated exchange took place. Yanikian then pulled a Luger pistol from a hollowed-out book and emptied nine rounds at them, hitting them in the shoulders and chest, though none of the wounds were lethal. As Baydar and Demir lay on the ground Yanikian pulled out a Browning pistol from a drawer and fired two rounds into the head of each man, "what he considered mercy shots.".[3] Baydar immediately died. (Demir who was mortally wounded died in the hospital.)

Baydar was survived by his wife Güner and two daughters.[4]

Baydar was the first victim of a series of Turkish diplomats and representatives assassinated abroad up to 1994.

Legacy

A high school in Istanbul[5] and a street in Ankara[6] are named after Mehmet Baydar.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "UPI. Author Yanikian Refuses To Plea." Beaver County Times. Feb. 27, 1973.
  2. ↑ Bobelian. Children of Armenia, p. 147.
  3. ↑ Bobelian. Children of Armenia, pp. 147-48.
  4. ↑ Bilal Şimşir: Şehit Diplomatlarımız, Bilgi yayınevi, İstanbul, Vol 1, ISBN 975-494-925-5 p.82
  5. ↑ School page
  6. ↑ Ankara street map
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