Members of France's Kurdish community gather on Thursday while two men, seen left, carry the body of one of the three women slain in Paris (AFP Photo)

PARIS (Combined Sources)—Three Kurdish women were shot dead in Paris in killings that appeared politically motivated, police and other sources said Thursday.

The bodies of the women were found at the Information Center of Kurdistan, a police source said. The center has close links to Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

Sakine Cansiz

The dead include Sakine Cansiz, one of the co-founders of the PKK, currently in negotiations with Ankara to establish a cease fire. The two others victims were Kurdistan National Committee (KNC) representative and head of the Kurdish institute Fidan Dogan, and activist Leyla Soylemez.

The French interior minister Manuel Valls said the three were “summarily executed.”

“There is no doubt this was politically motivated,” center employee Berivan Akyol told French broadcaster iTele.

Firat reported that two of those killed were shot in the head and one in the stomach, and that the murder weapon was believed to have been fitted with a silencer.

“A couple of colleagues saw blood stains at the door. When they broke the door open and entered they saw the three women had been executed,” French Kurdish Associations Federation Chairman Mehmet Ulker was quoted as saying by Firat.

The Coordinating Council of Armenian Organizations in France (CCAF) condemned the assassination on Thursday and offered condolences to the Kurdish community of France.

“We believe that the attack bears the hallmarks of Turkish nationalists who have highly structured networks in France and Europe. The French government should take all necessary steps, including extreme ones, to stop the Turkish paramilitary organizations that operate outside the law,” said the CCAF statement.

“The ties of these Turkish nationalist organizations to the Turkish state are well known to the public,” added the statement.

“The CCAF believes that the targets of Turkish nationalists are not safe in France today and appeals to the French government to take extraordinary measures to ensure the safety of individuals, activists and Kurdish and Armenian institutions,” urged the statement.

The Turkish government and the jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan on Tuesday agreed on a framework for a plan to end the Kurdish-Turkish conflict envisioning Kurdish disarmament in exchange for increased minority rights, the Turkish Radikal reported.

The newspaper said senior intelligence officials had held meetings with PKK chief Abdullah Ocalan in his island jail near Istanbul, yielding a four-stage plan to halt the conflict.