PKK group surrender to Turkey for Kurdish rights

A group of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas gathered on the Iraqi side of the Turkish border in the province of Arbil to pass through the border and surrender themselves to Turkish military forces on Monday, in a gesture of support for Turkey's Kurdish initiative.Rouzh Welat of the group's foreign affairs department said earlier that eight fighters from a PKK camp in the Qandil Mountains in northern Iraq will cross the border to Turkey upon the wishes of imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan. Two other groups of refugees and PKK supporters were also expected to enter Turkey on Monday.Turkish government has been working on a Kurdish initiative that is expected to give greater freedoms to Turkey's large Kurdish minority, including language rights by which Kurdish may be taught in public universities.Turkey has been fighting the PKK since 1984 when they picked up arms to carve out a homeland in south-eastern Turkey. Ocalan who was imprisoned in 1999, continues to lead the PKK from his island cell off the Istanbul coast, but has focused lately on support for improved Kurdish rights in Turkey as a means to end the conflict.