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.

Since the ousting of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad last month by rebels, some of whom Turkey supported, Ankara has demanded that the YPG disband, its non-Syrian militants and foreign terrorist fighters leave Syria, or be repatriated to their source countries, and its leaders turn themselves in.

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.