Pakistan, July 13 -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday hailed start of a disarmament process by militant Kurdish separatists as the end of a "painful chapter" in Turkiye's troubled history.

Erdogan told a meeting of his ruling AKP party in Ankara that the more than 40-year-old "scourge of terrorism" for which the Kurdistan Workers' Party - or PKK - was responsible is on its way to ending.

Erdogan's remarks came a day after male and female members of the PKK in northern Iraq cast rifles and machine guns into a large cauldron where they were set on fire. The symbolic move was seen as the first step toward a promised disarmament as part of a peace process aimed at ending four decades of hostilities.

The move came after PK...