Italy has called on Turkey to act against what it termed unscrupulous gangs ferrying illegal immigrants to Europe.

The Italian interior minister, Giorgio Napolitano, said the growing arrival of Kurds was a problem for several European Union countries.

He called for an international initiative to bring peace to the Kurdish region.

The minister was speaking after coastguards in southern Italy rescued more than eight-hundred people from a Turkish-registered ship which ran aground in a storm.

The refugees -- mostly Kurds from Turkey, Iran and Iraq who said they'd paid three-thousand dollars each for the trip -- have been granted temporary asylum.

The captain and crew of the ship fled in a lifeboat.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service