Turkey on Monday moved to scrap restrictions on the use of the minority Kurdish language among democratic reforms seen as key to the stalled peace process with the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Turkey on Monday moved to scrap restrictions on the use of the minority Kurdish language among democratic reforms seen as key to the stalled peace process with the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan also announced that women in the civil service, with a few exceptions, will henceforth be allowed to wear the Hijab - Muslim headscarf.

Kurdish-language education will be permitted in private schools, and candidates in elections will be allowed to campaign in Kurdish, Erdogan announced.

The reforms will also aim to ease rules preventing pro-Kurdish and other smaller parties from entering parliament, he told a news conference.

Among other reforms the prime minister announced, schoolchildren will no longer be required to recite the pledge of allegiance -- "How happy is the one who calls himself a Turk" -- each morning.

In addition, towns can revert to their previous Kurdish names, and a quirky ban on the use of three letters of the Kurdish alphabet that do not exist in Turkish will be lifted, he said.

The long-awaited reforms are aimed at breaking an impasse in the peace process with the PKK, which is classified as a terrorist organization by Turkey and many other countries.

Parliament will discuss the proposed reforms after it returns from its summer recess on Tuesday, Erdogan said.

The prime minister also said that civil servants would henceforth be allowed to wear headscarves after a long-standing ban is overturned, in a move seen as a gesture to his own grassroots.

However the ban will remain in effect for judges, prosecutors, police and military personnel. Erdogan's AKP has already relaxed the ban on university students wearing headscarves.

The Islamic-rooted party insists that the ban flouts freedom of conscience and undermines the right to education.

Erdogan's government was hit by a wave of nationwide unrest in June that threw up the biggest challenge to his decade-plus rule. Protesters called Erdogan a "dictator", accusing him of trying to restore the epoch of Ottoman Empire.