'PKK members' held in Paris raids

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French police say 13 Turkish Kurds have been arrested on suspicion of money-laundering to help guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party, the PKK.

Those detained are all believed to be PKK members, police said.

They had been under investigation since last July when two Kurds were detained in Paris trying to change 200,000 euros into dollars, officials said.

The PKK, which is fighting for autonomy in south-east Turkey, is considered a terrorist group by the EU and the US.

Police said small amounts of cash were seized during the raids, which took place in the suspects' homes in various Paris suburbs.

"These are people we suspect of funding the PKK," a spokeswoman for the Paris prosecutors office was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.

The Turkish government has been urging the EU and the US to do more to crack down on the PKK which has several thousand fighters based in northern Iraq from where it can launch attacks on Turkey.

The PKK's conflict with Turkey has claimed more than 30,000 lives since it began in 1984.