Now for an episode of "Kurds Gone Wild!", Paris edition

[CountDeMoney]

Three Kurdish Activists Shot Dead in Paris
By MIMOSA SPENCER And JOE PARKINSON
www.wsj.com

PARIS—Three Kurdish activists, said to include a founding member of the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party, were shot dead overnight in killings that the Turkish government said could be aimed at derailing new peace talks seeking to end a war that has killed 40,000 people since 1984.

French police said on Thursday that the killings, which took place late on Wednesday in a Kurdish community center in central Paris, appeared to be targeted assassinations. The antiterrorist department of the Paris prosecutor's office has launched an investigation into the deaths, according to Paris police officials.

A police spokeswoman declined to name the victims, but Kurdish activists at the scene said one of those killed was Sakine Cansiz, a founding member of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, which took up arms against the Turkish state three decades ago with the aim of securing self-rule for the estimated 15 million Kurds in southeast Turkey. Another victim was Fidan Dogan, a representative in France of the Brussels-based Kurdish National Congress, and the third was a guest, the activists said.

The Firat news agency, which is close to the PKK, also reported that Ms. Cansiz and Ms. Dogan were two of the three victims. According to Firat, the bodies were found after friends of Ms. Dogan visited the office around 1 a.m. and broke down the door after seeing blood stains at the entrance. That account couldn't be independently verified.

The killings come amid rising optimism across much of Turkey over talks between Turkey's intelligence agency and PKK's imprisoned leader, Abdullah Ocalan, with the goal of pressing the group to disarm. The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the European Union.

At the scene on Thursday morning, several hundred mourners had gathered, with some carrying flags baring the face of Mr. Ocalan.

French Interior Minister Manuel Valls told reporters outside the building where the killings took place that the victims had been executed and stressed that the authorities were investigating.

"Three women were shot down, killed, without a doubt executed...Be assured of the determination of French authorities to expose the details of this affair," said Mr. Valls.

In Turkey, politicians called for calm and raised and urged hawkish parties opposed to negotiations not to exploit the killings to derail the talks.

"Unfortunately some may see the incident as an opportunity. Everybody should come to their senses and think and do what is their duty," President Abdullah Gul told reporters in Afyonkarahisar, western Turkey.

Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, said it wasn't certain who was behind the killings but stressed the facts suggested the incident could be attributed to internal score-settling within the PKK.

"We have seen inner conflict in the PKK before...I am not sure who has done this, but there are those who would try to sabotage the process," Mr. Celik said.

A PKK spokesman couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

The emergence of public talks has spotlighted the key role of PKK leader Mr. Ocalan, considered a demigod by some of his PKK followers but reviled by many Turks for his role directing the Kurdish insurgency in the 1980s and 1990s. Mr. Ocalan, who Turkish special forces arrested in 1999, is held in solitary confinement on a Turkish island in the sea of Marmara.

But analysts have stressed that the process remains fraught with political challenges, including internal fighting among PKK factions that disagree on whether to talk directly with the Turkish government.

"This time it looks like its different. Because the talks have been publicized, we have to think the government is convinced that they can work....But there is a real threat of the PKK splitting, and attacks from hard-line elements opposed to negotiations could derail the whole process," said Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Al Jazeera is reporting all 3 were shot in the head.

[Viking]

Somebody needs to tell Liam Neeson that Kurds are not a kind of Albanian, no matter how the smell.