The militant Kurdish group, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), announced today that it is withdrawing its fighters from Turkey to Iraq.
The announcement came several months after the decision to lay down their arms in a symbolic ceremony as part of the peace process.
The group has led a decades-long insurgency in Turkey that has killed tens of thousands of people since the 1980s.
"In order to prevent any risk of conflict or provocation, we are currently withdrawing all our forces in Turkey to the Medja Defense Region, with the approval of Abdullah Ocalan," the PKK said in a statement, referring to their imprisoned leader Ocalan.
The Medja Defense Area is a term often used by the PKK to describe areas in northern Iraq.
The statement also calls for legal and political concessions.
"It is absolutely clear that we are committed to the resolutions of the 12th Congress and determined to implement them," the statement reads, adding that the implementation of these resolutions still requires the adoption of certain legal and political decisions.
Ocalan, who has been in prison near Istanbul since 1999, called on his group in February to convene a congress and officially disband and disarm. In May, the PKK announced it would do so.
The PKK launched an armed rebellion against Turkey initially with the aim of forming a Kurdish state in the southeast of the country, but over time this developed into a campaign for autonomy and the fight for Kurdish rights within Turkey.
Turkey, the US and the European Union consider the PKK a terrorist organization.
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