In a ceremony held in Iraqi Kurdistan on Friday, the PKK fighters destroyed their weapons, marking the conclusion of their decades-long armed struggle against the Turkish state. According to France24, the disarmament ceremony has marked a turning point in the transition of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) from armed insurgency to democratic politics as part of a broader effort to draw a line under one of the region's longest-running conflicts.
Founded by Abdullah Ocalan in the year 1970, the PKK took up arms in the year 1984, beginning a string of bloody attacks on Turkish soil that sparked a conflict that reportedly cost over 40,000 lives.
In May, PKK announced its dissolution, saying that it would pursue a democratic struggle to defend the rights of the Kurdish minority in line with a historic call by Ocalan, who has been serving a life sentence in Turkey since 1999.
France 24 reported that the ceremony on Friday took place in the morning in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan—where the fighters of the PKK have been holed up for over a decade.
According to AFP, thirty Kurdish PKK fighters destroyed their weapons at the brief ceremony in a cave.
"As a gesture of goodwill, a number of PKK fighters, who took part in fighting Turkish forces in recent years, will destroy or burn their weapons in a ceremony," a PKK commander told AFP on July 1, speaking on condition of anonymity.