Kurdish rebels released eight Turkish soldiers today in a secret dawn handover on the eve of talks in Washington between the Turkish Prime Minister and President Bush.

The troops, seized following clashes two weeks ago in which another 12 Turkish servicemen were killed, were due to return to Turkey later today, where there families are waiting for them.

Their release was a welcome breakthrough at a key time in the crisis between Turkey and Iraq over the PKK, who are holed up on the border between the two countries from where they are accused of launching attacks against Turkish targets.

Some 100,000 Turkish troops, backed by tanks, artillery and aircraft, are massed along the border threatening a large-scale military incursion to crush the rebels. Iraq’s Kurdish north says that any operation that compromises Iraqi sovereignty would be seen as an act of war.

“The hostages have been released,” the Kurdish Iraqi official told The Times. “Everyone is in good health. They are now safe and sound.” A PKK source also confirmed that the “prisoners of war” had been handed over.

A statement by the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) said: “After personal attempts by Kurdistan Regional President Massoud Barzani, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Kurdistan regional Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani, the Turkish soldiers who were detained by the PKK were released this morning."

Karim Sinjari, Kurdish regional interior minister, was reportedly involved in behind-the-scenes negotiations to secure the soldiers’ release, along with three Kurdish lawmakers from Turkey and Hussain Sinjari, president of Tolerancy International.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish Prime Minister, is due to discuss the escalating crisis over the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) on Iraq’s border with Turkey at a Washington summit tomorrow.

Baghdad, Washington and the Kurdish regional administration are anxious to avoid any such cross-border incursion and have been hard at work with diplomatic negotiations.

The Iraqi side was keen to emphasise at a high-level meeting in Istanbul yesterday its commitment and willingness to take action against the PKK.

“Iraq should not be a base for attacks against neighbors,” said Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister. “We will cooperate with our neighbours in defeating this threat.”

Any action by Baghdad would in reality be carried out by Kurdish authorities on the ground, which have been accused by Turkey of allowing the PKK to operate freely on the border.

In a sign of a new tough stance adopted by the Kurdish Regional Government, the Kurdish authorities shut down the Irbil and Sulaimaniyah offices of the Kurdistan Democratic Solution party, an organisation that allegedly had close ties to Kurdish guerrillas.

Mr Erdogan meanwhile left for Washington after the Istanbul meeting on Saturday, saying that the primary agenda for his talks on Monday with Mr Bush would be “PKK terrorism”.

“I am expecting that this trip will result with the United States...taking solid steps,” he added.

The Istanbul conference – gathering Iraq, its neighbours and trading partners along with representatives from the European Union, the Group of Eight industrialized nations and the U.N. Security Council's permanent members – had been convened to discuss broader issues about the war-torn country but was largely overshadowed by the cross-border tensions with Turkey.

Ankara said it had an array of tools to deal with the PKK, including diplomacy, economic measures and military means.

“Right now, for Turkey, all these options are on the table,” said Ali Babacan, the Turkish Foreign Minister, “How, when and whether or not these measures will be used is a question of strategy.”

The seizure of the eight Turkish hostages and the killing of another 12 during the October 12 ambush ratcheted up tensions in Turkey to unprecedented levels over the PKK, which has been waging an armed campaign for greater rights for Kurds in Turkey since 1984.

Nearly 40,000 people are believed to have died as a result of the struggle by the guerrilla group, which is labelled a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

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