Fighters with a Kurdish separatist militant group that has waged a decades-long insurgency in Turkey have begun laying down their weapons.

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.