A ceremony in northern Iraq on Friday saw a handful of Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants lay down their weapons, a small but hugely symbolic gesture that marks the beginning of an end to a conflict with the Turkish state that’s lasted nearly five decades and cost tens of thousands of lives.

A group of 30 Kurdish fighters have ceremonially burned their weapons in northern Iraq, marking a major step toward ending a decades-long insurgency. The members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party,