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

Kurdish militants want to return to Turkey and enter mainstream politics, one of the PKK's joint leaders told AFP on Friday after the group's fighters began destroying their arms at a ceremony in Iraq.

A ceremony is scheduled today in Iraqi Kurdistan to mark the movement's farewell to arms. Its leader Öcalan recently praised “politics and social peace,” while delinking his perso

Bahçeli also commended the DEM Party for maintaining what he described as a responsible political stance. Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli, who initiated the current peace process in October, has issued a written statement welcoming the PKK’s disarmament move earlier today.