A majority of Turkish lawmakers on Wednesday backed a bill providing a limited and conditional amnesty for members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), marking the first legislative step in a process aimed at ending decades of armed conflict. The signatories include lawmakers from President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), its ally the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party). Öcalan responded to the peace initiative by calling on the PKK to renounce armed struggle, dissolve itself and surrender its weapons. The bill also provides for the registration of weapons surrendered or declared by PKK members. The process seeks to end a conflict between the PKK and the Turkish state that has claimed at least 50,000 lives since the group launched its armed campaign in 1984.