ISTANBUL—Kurdish militants freed a group of Turkish soldiers and officials they had held captive in northern Iraq for more than a year, marking the most concrete result to emerge from new peace talks aimed at ending a three-decade insurgency.

The eight Turkish hostages were released on Wednesday and handed to a group of Turkish lawmakers and officials from the Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq, Turkish officials confirmed. They were then reunited with their families in the town of Habur on Turkey's border with northern Iraq. Images shown on private Turkish television channel NTV showed the captives in civilian clothing looking in good health, flanked by armed militants from the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, which is based in Qandil, Iraq.

The news is likely to add momentum to peace talks Turkish officials began in September with PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan—who is imprisoned on a Turkish island close to Istanbul—with the aim of ending a conflict in which more than 40,000 people have been killed over nearly 30 years. Mr. Ocalan has said he foresees a cease-fire by March 21, the Kurdish new year, ahead of a possible withdrawal of PKK fighters from Turkish territory later this year.

"This is a good thing and the process continues as foreseen," said Hussein Celik, government spokesman and deputy chairman of Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party. "We want this bloodshed to stop and this fire to be put out. First the guns need to be silenced, then the weapons need to be laid down. I am hopeful that if the process isn't sabotaged we will see these things."

Optimism has risen in Turkey as talks between Ankara's intelligence agency and Mr. Ocalan have gathered pace. Under a plan discussed by Mr. Ocalan and the government in Ankara, the PKK would end hostilities and withdraw its fighters from Turkey as a prelude to disarmament, in exchange for greater Kurdish rights, enshrined in the constitution.