SULAYMANIYAH, Iraq (Reuters) -Dozens of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants began handing over weapons in a ceremony in a cave in northern Iraq on Friday, officials said, marking a symbolic but significant step toward ending a decades-long insurgency against Turkey.

As Turkey tentatively steps onto a path towards peace, buoyed by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party’s (PKK) symbolic disarmament, the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) is preparing for an internal overhaul with an eye to elevating the party's political standing.

The group of 30 members burned their weapons in a cauldron in Iraq. The group has been fighting with Turkey for 40 years.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday his country had achieved victory after Kurdish rebels destroyed their weapons, ending their decades-long armed struggle against Ankara.

Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed founder of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey, has called on his followers to abandon their armed struggle against the Turkish state, speaking directly to supporters by video for the first time in 26 years.

In the first footage of him to be released publicly in 25 years, Abdullah Ocalan said the P.K.K. insurgency against Turkey would be replaced by politics.