1985 Turkish embassy attack in Ottawa
| 1985 Turkish embassy attack in Ottawa | |
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| Location | Ottawa, Ontario, Canada |
| Coordinates | 45°26′5″N 75°40′32″W / 45.43472°N 75.67556°WCoordinates: 45°26′5″N 75°40′32″W / 45.43472°N 75.67556°W |
| Date | March 12, 1985 7 a.m |
| Target | Turkish Embassy, Ottawa |
| Deaths | 1 |
| Perpetrators | Armenian Revolutionary Army |
On 12 March 1985, agents of the Armenian Revolutionary Army attacked the Turkish embassy in Ottawa, Canada.
The storming of the embassy began shortly before 7 a.m., when three militants in a rented moving truck arrived at the embassy gate. They scaled the security gate and began shooting at the bulletproof security hut. Security officer Claude Brunelle, a 31-year-old student from the University of Ottawa, was on duty. As soon as the attack began, Brunelle called in the emergency code and left the hut to confront the gunmen. He fired four shots at the gunmen and took two shots in the chest, which killed him instantly.
Using a powerful homemade bomb, the gunmen blasted open the heavy front door of the two-storey, Tudor-style home and embassy office on Wurtemberg Street, in the capital's embassy district about two kilometers east of Parliament Hill. Once inside, they began rounding up hostages, including the wife of the Turkish ambassador, his teen-age daughter and embassy staff members – at least 12 people. Ambassador Coşkun Kırca, a veteran career diplomat with United Nations experience, who had been in Canada less than two years, escaped by leaping from the second floor window at the back of the embassy, breaking his right arm, right leg and pelvis.
The police response was almost immediate. Within three minutes, officers were on the scene. Four hours later, the gunmen released all hostages and surrendered – they tossed out their weapons and came out of the building with their hands up, asking only that they not be shot by police. Earlier, in telephone conversations with reporters, they demanded, in exchange for releasing their hostages, that Turkey acknowledge the 1915 Armenian holocaust and “return Armenian lands confiscated by Turkey”. The gunmen, who said they were members of the Armenian Revolutionary Army told Ottawa police they blasted their way into the Turkish embassy “to make Turkey pay for the Armenian genocide" of 1915.
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Wikipedia