“Good things are happening in Turkey,” Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, told deputies of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Ankara this week.

A total of 34 people, including children but also unarmed members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) arrived at the Habur border crossing between Turkey and Iraq on Monday, awaited by Turkish state prosecutors and a crowd of well-wishers.

Besir Atalay, the interior minister, said he expected a further 100 to 150 PKK supporters from Iraq shortly.

After being questioned until the early hours, 29 people of the Habur group were released.

Mr Erdogan welcomed the release of most of the returnees as “extremely positive”.

Although the group was relatively small given the scale and the long history of Turkey’s Kurdish conflict, their arrival at the border was seen as a significant event.

The Radikal newspaper quoted an unnamed high-ranking government official as saying that the arrival could be a turning point. “Beginning of a new era for the republic,” a headline in the Taraf newspaper said.

By returning to Turkey, the group followed an appeal from Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed PKK leader, issued via his lawyers. Ocalan, who is serving a life sentence on the prison island of Imrali, close to Istanbul, also called on two other Kurdish “peace groups” to enter Turkey.

The voluntary return of the PKK supporters was designed to “open the way for a peaceful and democratic development” in the Kurdish question,

According to news reports, the group that arrived in Habur carried a letter to the government listing political demands of the PKK, including more language rights for Turkey’s 12 million Kurds, a new constitution recognising Kurdish identity, and an end to military operations in predominantly Kurdish south-eastern Anatolia.

The letter said Kurds were a “part of Turkey’s democratic nation”, confirming the PKK no longer demands a separate Kurdish state, an aim when they took up arms in 1984.

Some of the PKK’s demands tie in with government plans for the region.

Mr Erdogan has promised a reform package for a democratic solution of the Kurdish conflict by the end of the year.

Reports say the plan calls for an introduction of Kurdish-language courses in state schools and the return of Kurdish names to towns given Turkish names in the past, among other measures.

Polls show Mr Erdogan’s plans have the support of up to 64 per cent of the Turkish electorate.

The PKK - or Kurdistan Worker's Party - this year marked the 25th anniversary of its fight for autonomy, which has resulted in more than 40,000 deaths.

The government of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is currently seeking opposition support for a negotiated settlement to end the insurgency.

The Turkish government has not said what measures it is prepared to include in a peace package.

But the issue is delicate as any concessions to the PKK are sure to be condemned by nationalist politicians, being perceived as giving in to terrorists.

Turkish warplanes have launched numerous recent attacks on rebel hideouts in the Iraqi Kurdistan region, from where Ankara says some 2,000 PKK members regularly stage hit-and-run attacks on Turkish territory.