Italy urges Turkey to stop immigrant-smugglers

Italy has urged Turkey to crack down on immigrant-smuggling rings after coastguards rescued more than 800 refugees from a Turkish ship which ran aground off Italy's southern coast early on Saturday.

"What is needed is a commitment in earnest from the Turkish authorities to cut off at the roots this traffic towards Europe that is being organized by unscrupulous gangs," Italian TV quoted Interior Minister Giorgio Napolitano as saying in a statement.

He said smuggling of immigrants was a difficult problem not only for Italy but also for many European Union member states.

Napolitano also called for "an international initiative to bring peace to the region of Kurdistan and to achieve recognition of these people's rights," the television said.

BBC Monitoring (http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk), based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.