After 40 years of armed struggle against the Turkish state, the outlawed Kurdish PKK will hold a ceremony todayy to mark a symbolic first step in laying down its arms.
The disarmament process will start under tight security in Iraqi Kurdistan and is expected to take all summer.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has hailed the move as “totally ripping off and throwing away the bloody shackles that were put on our country’s legs”.
Some 40,000 people have been killed since the conflict began, and the PKK is listed as a terror group in Turkey, the US, EU and UK. Its disarmament will be felt not just in Turkey but in Iraq, Syria and Iran.
