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.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday his country had achieved victory after Kurdish rebels destroyed their weapons, ending their decades-long armed struggle against Ankara.

The imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party has renewed his call for fighters to disarm. Abdullah Ocalan emphasized in a video message on Wednesday the importance of abandoning armed conflict and embracing peace through politics.

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

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.

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.

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,

Fighters with a Kurdish separatist militant group that has waged a decades-long insurgency in Turkey have begun laying down their weapons in a symbolic ceremony Friday in northern Iraq, the first conc