Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday renewed threats of a military offensive in northern Syria, which he said would target Kurdish "terrorists".

"We are taking another step in establishing a 30-kilometre security zone along our southern border. We will clean up Tal Rifaat and Manbij", he said, referring to two northern Syrian cities.

Erdogan said they would then proceed, "step by step, into other regions".

For a week now, Turkey's leader has been threatening to launch an operation against fighters of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

He is also targeting the People's Protection Units (YPG), a Syrian-Kurdish group it considers to be part of the PKK.

"We will see who supports the legitimate security operations carried out by Turkey and who tries to oppose them," said Erdogan.

The YPG-linked Syrian Democratic Forces warned that an invasion by Ankara would undermine efforts to combat Islamic State group jihadists in Syria's northeast.

"The SDF has been expecting a possible battle for a while now," said Farhad Shami, a spokesperson for the Kurdish-led force.

"In the event of an attack, we will pause our war against the Islamic State group and start military measures against the Turkish invasion," he told AFP.

Erdogan said over the weekend that Turkey would not wait for permission from the United States before launching such an operation.

Washington last week warned Turkey against launching a military operation into northern Syria, saying it would undermine regional stability and put US forces serving there at risk.

Erdogan on Tuesday told Russian President Vladimir Putin that a 2019 agreement signed between the two countries allowed for the creation of a security zone along the Turkish-Syrian border.

"Its creation is imperative," Erdogan said.

He has also opposed the recent applications of Finland and Sweden for NATO membership, over what it considers their leniency toward Kurdish militant groups.

Both Manbij and Tal Rifaat host large Kurdish populations and lie near Turkey's border with Syria.

Their capture would allow Erdogan to expand and deepen the so-called "safe zone" along the border where Ankara hopes to resettle Syrian refugees.

Blinken warns Turkey against Syria offensive
Washington (AFP) June 1, 2022 - US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday warned NATO ally Turkey against a military offensive in Syria, saying it would put the region at risk.

Blinken urged Turkey to stick to cease-fire lines established in 2019 after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan renewed threats to "clean up" two northern Syrian cities of Kurdish fighters.

"It's something that we would oppose," Blinken told a joint news conference with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.

"The concern that we have is that any new offensive would undermine regional stability (and) provide malign actors with opportunities to exploit instability," Blinken said.

The United States has partnered with Syrian Kurdish fighters to fight the Islamic State movement, also known as ISIS or Daesh, in war-battered Syria.

But Turkey considers the Syrian Kurdish fighters part of the PKK, separatists considered terrorists by Ankara.

"We continue effectively to take the fight through partners to Daesh -- to ISIS -- within Syria and we don't want to see anything that jeopardizes the efforts that are made to continue to keep ISIS in the box that we put it in," Blinken said.

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