3 kurdish women activists shot dead in Paris

3 Kurdish women activists shot dead in Paris UPDATED: Jan 10, 2013 17:28 GMT The apparent assassinationof three Kurdish women political activists in central Paris on Thursday, all shot in the head, has provoked shock among the Kurdish community. Mystery swirls around the slayings, with no claim of responsibility or any indication from authorities as to who might have pulled the trigger. The fact that one of the women is a founding memberof the Kurdish Workers' Party, or PKK -- a group viewed by Turkey, the United States and others as a terror organization -- hasled to heightened speculation. The killings come at a delicate time for Kurds in Turkey, where analysts saythe government has recently entered into talks with Kurdish leaders -- among them the jailed head of the PKK, Abdullah Ocalan. Analysts suggest the attack could be an attempt to deraila nascent peace process, inwhat is one of the Middle East's longest-running conflicts. The PKK, a pan-Kurdish nationalist movement, is best known internationally for the guerrilla war it has fought for nearly three decades against the government of Turkey, a conflict that has claimed more than 40,000 lives. The ethnic Kurdish population extends across parts of Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq. French Interior Minister Manuel Valls told reporters in Paris the three women had been "without doubt executed" and described the killings as "totally unacceptable." Report: Turkey's Kurdish conflict has turned more violent The main pro-Kurdish political party in Turkey, thePeace and Democracy Party,or BDP, identified the three victims as Sakine Cansiz, who was a co-founder of the PKK, Leyla Sonmez and Fidan Dogan