Many believe the murders of the three Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) women on Jan. 10 in Paris were aimed to sabotage the Turkish government’s new efforts to find a peaceful solution to the long-lasting Kurdish issue in Turkey. While there is no doubt that these executions are going to have an impact, it is an exaggeration at best to claim that just one act can derail this initiative. Still, there are other serious potential challenges to this process.

First is the question of whether the public has been prepared for engaging directly with imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s rhetoric on this issue seems contradictory.

When French President Francois Hollande admitted that he “knew one of the three women,” Erdogan exploded and demanded Hollande explain to the “French and Turkish public as to what he had discussed with this terrorist.” In response, Kemal Kilicdaroglu of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and Devlet Bahceli of the Nationalist Movement Party, both opposition leaders, wondered what Erdogan would tell to Hollande “if he were to ask what he is discussing with the PKK leader.”

Kilicdaroglu and Bahceli argue that the Erdogan government has no clear strategy to address the issue and express distress over the ruling party’s political maneuvers that they say only aim to win votes in the elections.