SULAYMANIYAH, Iraq — Fighters with a Kurdish separatist militant group that has waged a decades-long insurgency in Turkey began laying down their weapons in a symbolic ceremony on Friday in northern Iraq, the first concrete step toward a promised disarmament as part of a peace process.
The Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, announced in May that it would disband and renounce armed conflict, ending four decades of hostilities. The move came after PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, who has been imprisoned on an island near Istanbul since 1999, urged his group in February to convene a congress and formally disband and disarm.
Öcalan renewed his call in a video message broadcast Wednesday, saying, ''I believe in the power of politics and social peace, not weapons.''
Dozens of fighters took part in a ceremony
Most journalists were not allowed at the site of Friday's ceremony.
The PKK issued a statement from the fighters laying down their weapons, who called themselves the ''Peace and Democratic Society Group,'' saying that they had disarmed ''as a gesture of goodwill and a commitment to the practical success'' of the peace process.
''We will henceforth continue our struggle for freedom, democracy, and socialism through democratic politics and legal means,'' the statement said.
The ceremony took place in the mountains outside the city of Sulaymaniyah in northern Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish region. The state-run Iraqi News Agency reported that ''the process will take place in stages, with a group of party members initially laying down their weapons symbolically.'' The disarmament process is expected to be completed by September, the agency reported.