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

Southeast Turkey, where the army has battled Kurdish militants for decades, is not yet convinced that lasting peace is at hand.In a slickly managed ceremony across the border in Iraq Friday, members of the Kurdish rebel group PKK destroyed their weapons as part of a peace process underway with the Turkish state.

The PKK's original aim was to establish a Kurdish state in the southeast of Turkey, but over time its goals evolved into a campaign for greater autonomy for Turkey's Kurdish population. View on eurone