Turkey threatened Tuesday to launch a military operation against Kurdish forces in Syria unless they accepted Ankara's conditions for a "bloodless" transition after the fall of strongman president Bashar al-Assad.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Monday that eradication of the Kurdish YPG militia in Syria was "imminent", and that Ankara would not agree to any policy that allowed the YPG to maintain a presence there.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported on Sunday that 85 Turkey-backed fighters and 16 fighters from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were killed in the fighting, which began on Friday evening in several villages near the city of Manbij.

Turkey is working to ensure that Syria's transformation over the last month will not bring new instabilities to the region, President Tayyip Erdogan told the Iraqi Kurdish prime minister, Erdogan's office said on Tuesday.

The announcement comes after Kurdish groups said they had launched a counteroffensive against Turkish forces that entered Syria and taken territory

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday that Syria's new leadership is determined to root out separatists there, as Ankara said its military had "neutralised" 32 members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party,

Tensions in Syria have escalated dramatically as the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) successfully shot down a Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drone near the Qaraqozak Bridge in northern Raqqa. This incident marks the third Turkish drone downed by the SDF within a month,