Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced a hopeful shift as the PKK begins disarmament, signaling an end to decades of unrest. The decision follows urging by imprisoned leader Abdullah Ocalan.

A ceremony in northern Iraq on Friday saw a handful of Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants lay down their weapons, a small but hugely symbolic gesture that marks the beginning of an end to a conflict with the Turkish state that’s lasted nearly five decades and cost tens of thousands of lives.

SULAYMANIYAH, Iraq, July 11 (Reuters) - Thirty Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants burned their weapons at the mouth of a cave in northern Iraq on Friday, marking a symbolic but significant step toward ending a decades-long insurgency against Turkey.

The Kurdish guerrilla group held a symbolic ceremony in which a portion of their weapons was set on fire, marking the start of their disarmament process. This

Thirty PKK fighters destroyed their weapons at a symbolic ceremony in Iraqi Kurdistan on Friday, two months after the Kurdish rebels ended their decades-long armed struggle against the Turkish state.The ceremony marked a major step in the transition of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) from armed insurgency to democratic politics as part of a broader effort to end one of the region's longest-running conflicts.

The group of 30 members burned their weapons in a cauldron in Iraq. The group has been fighting with Turkey for 40 years.

ANKARA, Turkey — The jailed leader of a Kurdish militant group renewed Wednesday a call for his fighters to lay down their arms, days before a symbolic disarmament ceremony is expected to take place as a first concrete step in a peace process with the Turkish state.

Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed founder of the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), is an icon to many Kurds but a "terrorist" to many within wider Turkish society.- Jailed but still leading - With Ocalan's arrest,

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has hailed the disarmament of militant Kurdish separatists as the end of a “painful chapter” in Turkey’s history