After announcing they would disarm, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) destroyed their weapons in northern Iraq.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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