Reşadiye_shooting
Reşadiye shooting
Kurdish attack on Turkish soldiers
The Reşadiye shooting was an ambush that took place on December 7, 2009, at Reşadiye, Tokat Province, Turkey. Unidentified gunmen ambushed a Turkish patrol, killing seven soldiers and wounding three others. It was the region's deadliest attack in more than a decade, since the Sazak assault in 1997;[4] and most recent attack in Turkey since April, 2009 when a remote-controlled bomb set by Kurdish militants killed 10 soldiers in the country's southeast.[5] The last major attack in Tokat was in 2001.[6]
The ambush occurred as Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was received in Washington, D.C., by U.S. President Barack Obama and occurred the day before a court was due to consider outlawing Turkey's Democratic Society Party (DTP), the largest Kurdish party in the country.[2][7][8][9][10] The threat of parliamentary resignations and a potential election lingered in the air.[11] The Turkish army said on their website that they would maintain a presence in the area.[4]