"Today we started courses of a four-year undergraduate programme on Kurdish language and literature," Professor Kadri Yildirim, head of the department at Artuklu University in southeastern Mardin province, told AFP.

Twenty-one students, eight female and 13 male, enrolled in the programme, said Yildirim.

It is the first time a Turkish university is offering Kurdish undergraduate courses at a time the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government is criticised for dragging feet on its so-called Kurdish initiative.

Turkey's 15 to 20 million Kurds have enjoyed considerably expanded rights in recent years: they can now broadcast in Kurdish, teach their mother tongue in private courses and use it in political life.

But they have upped the stakes as the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) demanded that the new constitution recognise the Kurds as a distinct element of the nation, grant them autonomy and the right to Kurdish-language education in schools.

Ankara announced "Kurdish opening" in 2009 in a bid to cajole Kurdish rebels into laying down their arms, raising hopes for an end to the conflict which has already claimed 45,000 lives since 1984.

But the initiative faltered amid continued violence and a Turkish nationalist backlash.