The ceremony marks a fresh turning point in a peace process aimed at ending the militant group’s four-decade-long armed campaign against Turkey.

A group of PKK members confirmed "voluntarily destroying their weapons" in a written statement. Video footage of the ceremony is expected later.

In a historic move, thirty PKK militants disarmed and destroyed their weapons in northern Iraq, symbolizing an important step towards ending a long-standing insurgency against Turkey. The disarmament,

Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), appeared in a rare online video on Wednesday to say the group's armed struggle against Turkey has ended, and he called for a full shift to democratic politics.

Bahçeli also commended the DEM Party for maintaining what he described as a responsible political stance. Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli, who initiated the current peace process in October, has issued a written statement welcoming the PKK’s disarmament move earlier today.

Due to sensitivities over the abandonment of the insurgency, the fighters will destroy rather than surrender their weapons. Once this process is complete Turkey, the United States and the European Union may lift the designation of the PKK as a “terrorist” group.