Kurdish PKK Fighters Burn Weapons in Step Toward Peace With Turkey

Middle East|Kurdish Fighters Burn Weapons in Step Toward Peace With Turkey

Dozens of Kurdish fighters from Turkey publicly burned their weapons on Friday during a ceremony aimed at demonstrating that their insurgent group was giving up its decades-long struggle against Turkey.

The ceremony took place in the rugged mountains of northeastern Iraq, where many fighters from the insurgent group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K., are based. It was the first concrete sign of disarmament in a peace process started last year to end a conflict that has killed more than 40,000 people over four decades.

Images released by journalists at the ceremony showed dozens of P.K.K. guerrillas, men and women, arriving at the site in military uniforms, carrying rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. They stood onstage in front of a large image of Abdullah Ocalan, the group’s imprisoned leader, who declared an end to the group’s armed struggle in a rare video released on Wednesday.

Other images showed the fighters placing their weapons and ammunition belts into a large metal container where a bonfire was lit to destroy the arms.

A statement provided by Turkey’s government communications office said that the ceremony “marks a concrete and welcome step toward ending the group’s decades-long campaign of violence.”

The P.K.K. began its insurgency against Turkey in the 1980s, aiming to establish an independent Kurdish state. Over the years, P.K.K. attacks on Turkish security forces and Turkish military operations against the insurgents killed tens of thousands of people, including many civilians.

Turkey, the United States and the European Union consider the P.K.K. a terrorist organization.

If the peace process succeeds and the P.K.K. disarms, it would be a major win for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, who could claim credit for finally getting rid of the country’s most severe domestic security threat.

Speaking to reporters last week, Mr. Erdogan hailed the peace process.

“The P.K.K. terror group’s laying down of arms will be the start of a new period for Turkey, with security, democracy and development,” he said.

Iraqi and Turkish officials were on site to watch Friday’s ceremony, including a delegation from Turkey’s pro-Kurdish political party, the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party.