Turkey's prime minister suggested Friday that a feud among Kurdish rebels was behind the shooting deaths of three Kurdish activists in Paris, and the rebels said it was an attempt to undermine peace talks that their jailed leader is holding with Turkey.

The three activists, including reportedly the founding member of the autonomy-seeking Kurdish rebel group Kurdistan Workers Party, also known as PKK, were found inside a Kurdish centre in the French capital on Thursday. The killings stunned the Kurdish community in Europe and put France in a delicate position as it tries to improve ties with Turkey.

Kurds have accused Turkey of the slayings, while Turkish officials have suggested the killings may be part of an internal feud or an attempt to derail the talks.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday that the need for a code to enter the Kurdish centre where the women died, suggested that the women probably knew the killer. Erdogan indicated that the centre was locked from the inside.

"It's not something that people who don't know the code can open," Erdogan told a group of journalists aboard a plane on his return from a visit to Senegal. "Those three opened (the door). They wouldn't open the door to people they don't know."

A PKK statement, carried by the Kurdish Firat news agency, condemned the killings and said they were an "attempt to undermine" the talks between Turkey and Ocalan.

It blamed the deaths on "international powers" and alleged secretive forces in Turkey and added: "the killings will not remain without a response."

Turkey is holding peace talks with the Kurdistan Workers Party, which seeks self-rule for Kurds in the country's southeast, to try to persuade it to disarm. The conflict between PKK and the Turkish government has claimed tens of thousands of lives since 1984.



Soran Ali