ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday hailed the start of a disarmament process by militant Kurdish separatists as the end of a “painful chapter” in Turkey‘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.

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