By Ako Rasheed SULAYMANIYAH, Iraq (Reuters) -Thirty Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants burned their weapons at the mouth of a cave in northern Iraq on Friday, marking a symbolic but significant step toward ending a decades-long insurgency against Turkey.

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

A group of fighters from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) on Friday concluded a formal weapons handover ceremony in northern Iraq by burning their surrendered weapons, symbolically ending decades of conflict with the Turkish state.