ABDULLAH ÖCALAN ON PARIS SLAYINGS

AFP –  Hürriyet – Istanbul – 15.1.2013 –  The jailed leader of Turkey’s Kurd rebels, Abdullah Ocalan, condemned on Monday the killing of three Kurdish women activists in Paris, one of them a longtime comrade, the Anatolia news agency reported, quoting his brother. “It was a very sad get-together,” Mehmet Ocalan told reporters after a visit to the prison island of Imrali near Istanbul, where his brother, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), has been kept for 14 years.

“He is very saddened by the massacre in France and condemns it,” he added, referring to the killing of the three activists on Thursday in an attack dubbed an “internal feud” by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The killings came days after Turkish media reported that Turkey and Ocalan had reached a roadmap to end the Kurds’ three-decade insurgency. “This massacre is a sign. No matter what you call it, it needs to be clarified as soon as possible,” Ocalan relayed his jailed brother as saying.