A group of 30 Kurdish fighters have ceremonially burned their weapons in northern Iraq, marking a major step toward ending a decades-long insurgency.

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

For the first time in four decades, the Kurdistan Workers Party, known as the PKK, is laying down its arms and says it will end its insurgency against Turkey. The separatist group’s disbandment comes after its imprisoned leader announced an end to its 41-year armed struggle and a transition to democratic politics.

Fighters with a Kurdish separatist militant group that has waged a decades-long insurgency in Turkey have begun laying down their weapons.

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.

SULAYMANIYAH, Iraq, July 11 (Reuters) - Dozens of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants will hand over their weapons in a ceremony in northern Iraq on Friday, marking a symbolic but significant first step toward ending a decades-long insurgency with Turkey.

It is part of a larger process in which the PKK is moving to lay down its arms.In May, the PKK said it would lay down its arms and disband, but it is not clear when this process will begin and how long it will take.

The PKK's jailed leader says in video address that his movement no longer seeks a nation state ahead of ceremony to lay down arms

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,

Ankara stated that granting the right to conditional release for those sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment is not under consideration.