A group of 30 Kurdish fighters have ceremonially burned their weapons in northern Iraq, marking a major step toward ending a decades-long insurgency.

Fighters from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, have begun laying down their weapons in a symbolic ceremony marking the first step toward the group’s promised disarmament. The move on

The ceremony took place under tight security at a cave in Iraqi Kurdistan - the disarmament process is expected to last all summer.

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.