Kurdish PKK militants begin handing over weapons in cave in Iraq

Dozens of Kurdistan Workers Party militants began handing over weapons in a ceremony in a cave in northern Iraq officials said.

Dozens of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants began handing over weapons in a ceremony in a cave in northern Iraq on Friday, officials said, marking a symbolic but significant step toward ending a decades-long insurgency against Turkey.

Helicopters hovered above the mountain where the disarmament process got underway, with dozens of Iraqi Kurdish security forces surrounding the area, a Reuters witness said.

The PKK, locked in conflict with the Turkish state and outlawed since 1984, decided in May to disband, disarm and end its separatist struggle after a public call to do so from its long-imprisoned leader Abdullah Ocalan.

After a series of failed peace efforts, the new initiative could pave the way for Ankara to end an insurgency that has killed over 40,000 people, burdened the economy and wrought deep social and political divisions in Turkey and the wider region.

The ceremony was held inside the Jasana cave in the town of Dukan, 37 miles northwest of Sulaymaniyah in the Kurdistan region of Iraq‘s north, according to an Iraqi security official and another regional government official.