Kurd militants surrender to back Turkish reforms

TURKEY: A small group of Kurdish separatist guerrillas surrendered to the Turkish army after returning from Iraq on Monday in a gesture of rebel support for government plans to expand Kurdish rights.

Eight militants from a Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) camp in the Qandil Mountains in northern Iraq crossed a border gate near the town of Silopi in Turkey's southeast where thousands of supporters were awaiting them with PKK flags.

Two other groups of refugees and PKK supporters also surrendered to authorities. A total of 34 people were being questioned by Turkish authorities, witnesses said.

It was not yet clear if they would face criminal charges. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's Islamist-rooted AK Party has launched an initiative that is expected to give greater freedoms to the 12 million-strong Kurdish minority in Turkey's southeast.

The process is seen as vital to Turkey's European Union membership application as it introduces reforms to meet the bloc's human-rights criteria for membership. The PKK had announced rebels would return to Turkey on the wishes of jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan to promote peace. The PKK, based in north Iraq, took up arms in 1984 to carve out an ethnic homeland in the predominantly Kurdish southeast. Silopi, Tuesday,Reuters