Thirty PKK fighters destroyed their weapons at a symbolic ceremony in Iraqi Kurdistan Friday, two months after the Kurdish rebels ended their decades-long armed struggle against the Turkish state.

The ceremony marks a turning point in the transition of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) from armed insurgency to democratic politics, as part of a broader effort to draw a line under one of the region's longest-running conflicts.

Analysts say with the PKK weakened and the Kurdish public exhausted by decades of violence, Turkey's peace offer handed its jailed founder Abdullah Ocalan a chance to make the long-desired switch away from armed struggle.

The PKK's disarmament also frames President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as the Turkish leader who managed to draw a line under a bloody conflict that cost more than 40,000 lives and wrought havoc in Turkey and beyond.

Outside the ancient cave of Casene, a group of 30 PKK fighters, both men and women, gathered on a stage in khaki fatigues, their faces uncovered, in front of an........

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