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 began laying down their weapons in a symbolic ceremony on Friday in northern Iraq, the first concrete step toward a promised disarmament as part of a peace process.

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani inaugurated Mosul International Airport on Wednesday, on the anniversary of the city’s liberation from the Islamic State (ISIS).

A deadlock persists despite continuous government efforts to resume oil shipments from Iraqi Kurdistan through the Turkish port of Ceyhan.

The decision by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) to lay down its arms and apparently disband has reverberated across the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq.

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako, Patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church, on Tuesday called on Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani to intervene and halt what he described as violations against sacred Christian sites in the southern province of Najaf.