The Kurds are the world's largest stateless ethnic group, with an estimated 25 to 30 million people living as minorities across Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey. Fragmentation and complex regional interests have always made Kurdish issues highly sensitive in the Middle East. But a possible turning point has emerged.

After over four decades of waging an armed anti-capitalist struggle for Kurdish self-determination against Turkey's government, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has declared an end to the conflict and initiated a disarmament process. On Friday, 30 PKK fighters ceremonially laid down and destroyed their weapons in Dukan, in the Sulaymaniyah Governate of Iraqi Kurdistan.

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Turkey's government has called the PKK's disarmament an opportunity for a peaceful future and promised to work toward stability and reconciliation. In February, PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, who has been imprisoned since 1999, called on adherents to end the separatist insurgency.

That is just the first step toward achieving a sustainable peace in the long-deadlocked conflict.

In a statement released on........

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