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.

Fighters from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, have begun laying down their weapons in a symbolic ceremony marking the first step toward the group’s promised disarmament. The move on

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said a “new page in history” has turned, after the Kurdish PKK militant group that has waged a decades-long insurgency in the country began laying down their weapons.