Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said the country had “turned . . . a new page in history” as Kurdish militants began to hand over their weapons in the latest step to end a four-decade insurgency that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

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

Turkey's DEM Party hailed the PKK's disarmament as a historic shift toward democratic resolution of the Kurdish issue. While celebrating this turning point, they demanded the release of jailed Kurdish leaders and emphasized that true peace requires political reform and inclusive dialogue.

The group took up arms in 1984, beginning a string of bloody attacks on Turkish soil that sparked a conflict that cost more than 40,000 lives. In May, the PKK announced its dissolution.

Turkey's pro-Kurdish DEM party will meet President Tayyip Erdogan on Monday, seeking to move along a peace process between the Turkish state and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group. DEM,

A group of 30 Kurdish fighters clad in camouflage fatigues burned their weapons in a large cauldron in northern Iraq on Friday, in a symbolic gesture marking the first concrete step in an effort to end one of the Middle East’s longest-running insurgencies.