BDP: France should solve Paris killings

ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

BDP co-chair Gültan Kışanak assures that the ceremony in Diyarbakır will be calm. DAILY NEWS photo

Even though France is the first party responsible for solving the mysterious murders of three Kurdish women killed in Paris last week, Turkey also bears a large share of responsibility, Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) co-chair Gülten Kışanak said yesterday.

“The primary responsibility for solving of the murders belongs to the French government. France has enough capability to solve these murders,” Kışanak said, adding that this situation didn’t eliminate Turkey’s responsibility. “These women are Turkish citizens. Any state that remains silent in the face of the murder of one of its own citizens cannot be called a state,” she said during a parliamentary group meeting.

Suggesting that the Turkish intelligence service had been closely following one of the women, Sakine Cansız, who was one of the founding members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Kışanak said that Turkish authorities could have prevented the slaying. “This massacre could have been stopped, but it wasn’t,” Kışanak said, adding that France has the capability to solve the murders. “If France does not shed light on these murders, then it will remain under suspicion.”

She also said that pointing to the Turkish “deep state” as one of the possible parties responsible for the killings is not totally irrelevant. “If a bug can be placed in the private office of the Turkish prime minister, one cannot say the deep state in Turkey has fully disappeared,” she said.

Kışanak, meanwhile, invited everyone to the funeral of the three women, whose bodies were received yesterday by their lawyers. The bodies will arrive today in Diyarbakır, she said.

Commenting on rumors that the funerals could present opportunities to provocateurs, Kışanak said those in power equally categorized the Kurds’ sorrow and joy as provocative. “Everybody agrees that these murders aimed to disrupt ongoing talks with Öcalan. Since we agree on this, then we have to teach a lesson to the murderers by holding a glorious ceremony and showing that we back the recent talks,” she said.

The BDP co-chair also described the ongoing negotiation process between the state and Öcalan as “belated,” while expressing her party’s full support for peace.

Meanwhile, Parliamentary Speaker Cemil Çiçek also urged French authorities to solve the Paris murders, stressing that speculations mount as long as murders remain unresolved.