PKK's surrendering of weapons underway in Iraq's Kurdistan

The first phase of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) disarmament officially began on Friday with a ceremony in northern Iraq, marking the implementation of the party’s dissolution and the formal launch of a peace process aimed at ending decades of conflict with Turkey. The initiative stems from a political process brokered by Ankara and PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, who called for the end of armed struggle in a message issued from his prison on İmralı Island on February 27. Al Mayadeen’s correspondent in Turkey reported that the first group of PKK fighters began surrendering their weapons as part of the disarmament process in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region. The ceremony was held at a confidential location near Sulaymaniyah in northeastern Iraq, attended by members of the Equality and Peoples' Democracy Party, Turkey’s third-largest political bloc, and several journalists.