The first group of Kurdish fighters leaving Turkey as part of a peace drive with Ankara arrived to handshakes and embraces in Iraqi Kurdistan early Tuesday after a gruelling week-long journey. "We are the first group to reach the safe area in Iraq," said Jagar, leader of the group of Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) fighters that comprised nine men and six women. The fighters, who arrived in the Harur area at about 6:00 am (0300 GMT), were armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles, light machineguns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

Iraqi Kurds living near the border are wary of thousands of Kurdish fighters leaving Turkey for northern Iraq, and hope the move does not lead to more Turkish air and artillery strikes. For years, Turkey's military has targeted fighters from the Kurdistan Workers' Party in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, keeping farmers from their land and sometimes killing and wounding civilians. The PKK, which has fought a 29-year nationalist campaign against Ankara, is now withdrawing its fighters into Iraq, where it already has bases, as part of a peace drive with Turkey.

Kurdish fighters have begun withdrawing from Turkey into their stronghold in Iraq, Kurdish sources said Wednesday, in a major step towards ending a decades-long conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people. The pullout is the first visible sign that months of fragile talks between the state and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) could succeed in ending 29 years of guerrilla war. "We know that they have started moving," Selahattin Demirtas, a pro-Kurdish lawmaker actively involved in the process, told AFP.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey's Kurdish rebels have accused the army of endangering an agreed pullout of rebel fighters from the mostly Kurdish southeast, due to start on Wednesday, with surveillance drones and large-scale movements of men and equipment. Top Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) commander Murat Karayilan ordered his fighters last month to begin withdrawing to bases in northern Iraq as part of a plan to end three decades of conflict with the Turkish state.