Turkish forces on Thursday (October 10th) continued their offensive on Syrian territory held by Kurdish militiamen, pushing the population to flee by the thousands.

Turkey, a NATO member, wants to create a "security zone" in the border region to remove Kurdish militiamen and transfer several million Syrian refugees to its territory, but the major powers fear that the operation does not revive the dispute.

According to Mevlüt Cavusoglu, Turkish Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Turkish forces do not intend to go deeper than 30 kilometers into Syrian territory.

The major powers on Thursday repeated their concern at the risk of seeing this operation allow jihadists taken prisoner by Kurdish rebels to escape and resume their guerrilla warfare or even return to their countries of origin, for foreigners.

The offensive began less than three days after Donald Trump's decision to redeploy some of the 1,000 US troops on the Turkish-Syrian border.

"We have three options: to send thousands of troops and to win militarily, to hit Turkey hard financially and with sanctions, or to mediate between Turkey and the Kurds," Donald Trump wrote on Twitter on Thursday.

"I hope we can mediate," he later told reporters.

Cities emptied of their population

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) played a decisive role in the fighting against ISIS. They detain thousands of jihadists and tens of thousands of their relatives who are in detention.

The Turkish Ministry of Defense has reported 228 dead among Kurdish militiamen since the beginning of the offensive. According to the OSDH, 23 FDS members and six pro-Turkish fighters perished.

The FDS rebels, a Kurdish-dominated movement of the People's Protection Units (YPG), said the Turkish strikes killed nine civilians.

According to the International Rescue Committee, 64,000 people have fled since the launch of the operation and Ras al Ain and Darbasia are now emptied of their population.

According to the OSDH, Turkish forces captured two villages near Ras al-Ain and five near the town of Tell Abyad.

Turkey could face certain "consequences" according to the UN

Ankara regards the YPG as a terrorist organization because of their links with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to let the 3.6 million Syrian refugees in his country leave for the European Union if its member states consider the presence of the Turkish army in Syria as an occupation.

The "28" had called the day before the stop of the offensive.

A Kamichli prison, where many IS members of about 60 nationalities are held, has been hit by Turkish shelling, the SDS said.

"These prison attacks harboring Daesh terrorists will lead to a disaster that the world may not be able to cope with in the future," they write in a statement.

The UN Security Council met during the day at the request of its European members (Great Britain, France, Germany, Belgium and Poland). At the end of this meeting, the US ambassador to the United Nations declared that Turkey could face certain "consequences" if it did not comply with its commitment to protect vulnerable populations and to contain jihadists of the IS.

With Reuters