Southeast Turkey, where the army has battled Kurdish militants for decades, is not yet convinced that lasting peace is at hand.

Fighters with a Kurdish separatist militant group that has waged a decades-long insurgency in Turkey have begun laying down their weapons.

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) began laying down its weapons in a symbolic ceremony in northern Iraq on Friday, marking the first visible step in a broader disarmament process aimed at ending over four decades of armed conflict with Turkey. Iraqi and Turkish officials hailed the move as a historic milestone for regional stability.