Against this backdrop, and the somewhat generalized indifference of Western Europe, a new scene, both criminal and terrorist, seems to have formed among the corrupt and activist elements of certain Armenian politico-military groups and the PKK. Meanwhile, this criminal and terrorist "underworld" is developing right at the outlet points of all the arms smuggling rings flourishing in the former Soviet Union as a result of the looting of former Soviet Army arsenals. They also receive support from certain elements, a very small, but unsavory, minority within the Armenian diaspora, one of the world’s largest.

This scene has a territorial base: the "Kurdish Republic of Lajin," an enclave granted by the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh to their Kurdish allies, in the same place where the Kurds had an autonomous district during the 1920s, before Stalin and his "nationalities policy." This "Republic of Lajin" has a President, Mustafa Vekili, a military commander , Ihsan Aslan (an Armenian Kurd), and an avowed policy of support for the PKK.

On December 28, 1994, in Armenia, President Levon Ter-Petrossian banned (for six months) Dashnak and all its satellite organizations, and had their offices occupied by the police and their property seized. The reason was that the

Dashnak Party includes a secret division known as "Dro," that has been operating in Armenia since 1992 and in the diaspora, and engaging in terrorism, arms and narcotics trafficking, racketeering, and spying on the Armenian Government. Some 50 agents strong, this "Dro" was unknown to most members of Dashnak and operated clandestinely out of Yerevan, Moscow, and Lebanon  . Its role was, in particular, to establish contacts with groups hostile to Turkey, such as the PKK. Finally, in May 1994, Armenian Government security forces arrested seven Kurds and three Armenians who were crossing the Armenian-Turkish border with a load of weapons and ammunition. The affair invoked the usual response from the PKK, i.e., a hunger strike among the Kurds of Yerevan. The investigation into this affair was still in progress as of Summer 1995.

(1) The initial trial of 11 members of Dro, charged with "banditry, murder, premeditated murder, crime organized by more than one person (with aggravating circumstances), drug trafficking, illegal possession of weapons, and using false documents," was to be held in Yerevan during the Summer of 1995. See the reportage on the Dro case in Armenian Life Weekly, Los Angeles, March 10, 1995, in Gamk, a Paris-based daily, May-June 1995, and the address by Armenian President Ter-Petrossian to the Armenian Parliament on May 18, 1995