However, significant questions remain among both the Kurdish and Turkish public over what the next step might be.

Not everyone was convinced things would change.

Last week a senior PKK commander, Duran Kalkan, warned that the ruling AKP was not looking for a solution but to “take over, destroy and annihilate”.

Kurdish politicians and journalists had faced a crackdown and the Turkish army was engaged in military operations in Iraqi Kurdistan and north-eastern Syria, he added.

“[Erdogan} is provoking and instigating war like a ‘war baron’,” he told a pro-PKK TV channel.

Turkish-backed forces in northeastern Syria have intensified their campaign against Kurdish forces and last month called on Syria’s new leaders to eliminate the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.

Pro-Kurdish politicians have been targeted by a wave of arrests and jail sentences in recent years.

Last year the two leaders of the pro-Kurdish HDP, Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag, were imprisoned for 42 years and 30 years respectively over deadly riots in 2014. They had already been in prison since 2016.

Kurdish politicians said it was a “black stain” on Turkey’s justice system and the HDP was subsequently reformed as the Dem party.

Some 40,000 people have died since the PKK’s insurgency began.

There was a spike in violence in southeastern Turkey from 2015-17 when a two-and-a-half year ceasefire broke down.

More recently, in October the PKK claimed an attack on the Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) headquarters near Ankara which left five people dead.

While Ocalan’s letter was being read out, the opposition Good party hung a large black banner on its headquarters remembering victims of the PKK: “We will not forget, we will not let them be forgotten.”