Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan kicked off his presidential campaign on Saturday by promising to transform the role into a more powerful position if he wins the August polls.

"We are taking the first step of a new beginning", he told thousands of cheering supporters in mass rally in the northern city of Samsun, just days after announcing his candidacy.

Kurdish rebels will begin a stalled withdrawal from Turkey into their safe haven in northern Iraq after parliament passes reforms aimed at ending a decades-long insurgency, local media reported on Saturday.

In an apparent bid to secure votes from the Kurdish community ahead of presidential polls in August, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government submitted a bill to parliament last week that would remove a number of barriers to a final agreement. 

After embarking on a peace process with homegrown Kurdish militants, Turkey is finally reconciling itself with the prospect of an independent Kurdish state in neighboring war-torn Iraq.

The idea of an independent Iraqi Kurdistan was once anathema for Ankara, which traditionally feared it would lead to a greater Kurdistan incorporating its own Kurdish-majority regions.

Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has ordered a senior regional party official to resign after pictures apparently showed him drinking alcohol, media reported Friday.

Mustafa Celebi, the head of the AKP in a district of the southwestern Mugla province, can be seen in photos posted on social media drinking alcohol with two colleagues, according to the website of the Hurriyet daily.

Islamic militants in Iraq have freed 32 Turkish truck drivers held hostage for three weeks in a mass kidnapping that shocked Turkey, the foreign minister said Thursday.

The truck drivers are now on their way back to Turkey through northern Iraq but a separate group of almost 50 kidnapped Turks remain in captivity, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told reporters.

Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan promised to represent all Turks as he declared he would stand for president, but critics fear his assumption of a powerful presidency risks further polarizing an already divided country.

Erdogan, 60, who has already been premier for 11 years, made clear in his announcement on Tuesday that he intended to be a much more powerful president than the largely ceremonial role performed by past incumbents.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who rose from selling lemons on the streets to become Turkey's most powerful modern leader, is hailed by supporters as the savior of his country, but has become an increasingly polarizing figure.

The religiously devout but charismatic prime minister is now seeking to extend his 11-year domination of Turkey by standing in a presidential election that would make him Turkey's longest serving ruler since its founding father Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared Tuesday he would stand in August's presidential election, paving the way to become the country's longest and most dominant serving leader since Ataturk.

Erdogan -- who is expected to win the poll despite a turbulent year that saw unprecedented protests against his rule -- declared the election would mark the start of a "new Turkey".

The Turkish government said on Monday that it was against Iraq's Kurdistan region splitting away from Baghdad, after Sunni militants seized a vast swathe of territory in Turkey's conflict-torn neighbor.

"The government is very closely monitoring the developments in Iraq," Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc told reporters after a cabinet meeting. 

Turkey's main pro-Kurdish party on Monday announced it was fielding Selahattin Demirtas, the party's co-chair, as its candidate for the presidential election in August to challenge Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The August 10 vote is shaping up as a two-horse race between Erdogan and opposition candidate Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu.