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

Southeast Turkey, where the army has battled Kurdish militants for decades, is not yet convinced that lasting peace is at hand.In a slickly managed ceremony across the border in Iraq Friday, members of the Kurdish rebel group PKK destroyed their weapons as part of a peace process underway with the Turkish state.

The disarmament of the P.K.K., a group that has battled since the 1980s for Kurdish independence, could end a conflict that has killed more than 40,000 people.