The Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) was a Marxist–Leninist organization whose primary objective was "to compel the Turkish Government to acknowledge publicly its alleged responsibility for the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915, pay reparations, and cede territory for an Armenian homeland". PKK and ASALA held a press conference on April 8, 1980, in Sidon which declared their cooperation, that resulted with the Strasbourg, November 9, 1980, and Rome, November 19, 1980, activities of ASALA and PKK cooperation. The Armenian guerilla fighter and ASALA member Monte Melkonian considered in his writings Armenian self-determination as a national minority within a revolutionary Kurdish state. However, after July 1983, ASALA disappeared in the Lebanese Beqaa Valley where the PKK established its camps.