Thousands of Kurds rallied across Turkey Monday as a Kurdish rebel "peace group" arrived from Iraq to show support for Ankara's plans to end the 25-year Kurdish conflict without violence. The peace group's 34 members, including eight Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels, were taken in for questioning as soon as they walked through the Habur gate on the border between Iraq and Turkey.
Four prosecutors sent to the border area to meet the group were to determine whether those held had committed any crimes and should be taken into custody.
Rallies in support of the group were held in several cities. Some 5,000 people gathered in a central square in Diyarbakir, the biggest city in the mainly Kurdish south-east, answering a call by Turkey's main Kurdish party, the Democratic Society Party. Similer demonstrations took place in Batman and Mardin in the south-east and the eastern cities of Tunceli, Van and Mus, as well as Izmir in the west and the country's biggest city Istanbul.
The PKK announced last week that it would send "peace groups" from Iraq and Europe, on a proposal from Ocalan, to help advance Ankara's bid for peace.