France: 3 Kurdish women ‘executed’ in Paris

PARIS (AP) — Three Kurdish women, including one of the founders of a militant group battling Turkish troops since 1984, were “executed” at a Kurdish center in Paris, the interior minister said Thursday. The news prompted angry crowds of Kurds to flood into the area.

It was not immediately clear who killed the women, who belonged to the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, a group that Turkey and its Western allies, including the United States and the European Union, consider a terrorist organization.

The slayings came as Turkey was holding peace talks with the group to try to persuade it to disarm. A Turkish lawmaker claimed the women were slain in a dispute between PKK factions, while some Kurdish protesters and a Kurdish lawmaker in Turkey claimed the Turkish government was involved.

Turkey’s Anadolu news agency identified one of the victims as Sakine Cansiz, a founding member of the PKK.

The conflict between the PKK and Turkish troops has claimed tens of thousands of lives since 1984, when the rebels — who are seeking self-rule for Kurds in southeast Turkey — took up arms.

French Interior Minister Manuel Valls, who visited the pro-Kurdish center in Paris where the bodies were found, said the deaths were “without doubt an execution.” He called it a “totally intolerable act.”

RTL radio reported that all three women were shot in the head, but French police would not immediately confirm the report.

Emotions mounted as hundreds of Kurds filled the street in Paris outside the Kurdistan Information Center. Police erected barricades to try to contain the crowd. Some people waved Kurdish flags while others chanted angrily against the Turkish government.

An online site for Kurdish youth called on all Kurds and “friends of Kurds to come to Paris.” The site, jeunessekurde.fr, showed three photos of the slain women. It identified the other two as Fidan Dogan, who reportedly was chief of the information center, and Leyla Soylemez.

Kurds make up more than 20 percent of Turkey’s 75 million people.

The three women were alone at the center on Wednesday and were unreachable by telephone, said Leon Edart, an official of the Federation of Kurdish Associations of France.

Friends went there after midnight and saw traces of blood on the door, which they then broke down, discovering the bodies, he said.

Police and firemen reached the bodies about 1:30 a.m. local time Thursday (7:30 p.m. EST Wednesday), a police official told The Associated Press. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give his name, in keeping with policy.

In Turkey, Selahattin Demirtas, the leader of a Kurdish political party in Turkey’s parliament, called on the French government to shed light on the killings “without delay” and in a way that “leaves no room” for doubt.

“We want it to be known that that these assassinations, which were carried in the busiest area of Paris, cannot be covered up,” Mr. Demirtas said.

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