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

SULAYMANIYAH, Iraq, July 11 (Reuters) - Dozens of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants will hand over their weapons in a ceremony in northern Iraq on Friday, marking a symbolic but significant first step toward ending a decades-long insurgency with Turkey.

Thirty PKK fighters destroyed their weapons at a symbolic ceremony in Iraqi Kurdistan on Friday, two months after the Kurdish rebels ended their decades-long armed struggle against the Turkish state.The ceremony marked a major step in the transition of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) from armed insurgency to democratic politics as part of a broader effort to end one of the region's longest-running conflicts.