STORY: Fighters from the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, burned their weapons on Friday.The event signified the beginning of a disarmament process meant to end a bloody, four-decade insurgency against Turkey.

A group of 30 Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) fighters ceremonially threw their weapons into a fire on Friday, as a large gathering of Turkish, Kurdish and international journalists, politicians, and observers looked on during an event held in the town of Dukan in Iraqi Kurdistan.

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.