Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met US Vice President Mike Pence on an official visit to Ankara, while the Kremlin expressed concern about the humanitarian situation in northern Syria.

Sources from the Turkish presidency said that the agenda of the meeting focused on discussing the military operation "spring of peace", bilateral relations under the recent US sanctions on Turkey, and demanding US President Donald Trump Turkey to stop this process.

President Erdogan said in a statement on Wednesday that the process will not stop until it achieves its objectives, namely clearing the area designated by Turkey as a "safe area" in northern Syria who he described as "terrorists of the YPG", and to ensure their withdrawal to a depth ranging from 30 and 35 kilometers, and 480 kilometers, from Manbij to the Iraqi border.

Trump has been accused of abandoning Kurdish guerrillas who were Washington's key partners in the battle to wipe out the Islamic State in Syria when US troops withdrew from the border to coincide with the start of the Turkish offensive.

Trump defended the move on Wednesday, calling it "strategically brilliant". He expressed his belief that the meeting of Pence and Erdogan would be successful, but warned of sanctions and tariffs "will be devastating to the Turkish economy" if it fails.

Humanitarian situation
In a parallel context, the Kremlin expressed concern about the humanitarian situation in northern Syria, and said that this will be at the heart of the talks of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Erdogan in Sochi, noting that what is said that Erdogan ignores Moscow's opinion is not true.

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The attack sparked a new humanitarian crisis in Syria, with some 160,000 civilians displaced, and raised security concerns for thousands of ISIS fighters in Kurdish jails.

The Kurdish-led administration in the area has called for a corridor to evacuate civilian casualties from the town of Ras al-Ain, where Turkish forces have pushed into the area.

She said in a statement that the population is trapped in the border town, and called on foreign powers - including the coalition led by the United States and Russia - to intervene to get them out.

For its part, the Islamic State announced on Thursday that it had "freed" a number of women detained by Kurdish fighters, after an attack on one of their headquarters in the province of Raqqa in northern Syria, according to a statement quoted by "jihad" on the application of Telegram.

This comes after a series of incidents that followed the departure of what is known as the "Syrian Democratic Forces" to repel an attack by Ankara with pro-Syrian Syrian factions against areas of control, including the escape of about 800 members of the families of the fighters of the organization from a camp for displaced people, as well as the escape of fighters from a prison, including Belgians Riots in other detention centers.

In a televised interview broadcast on Wednesday, SDF commander Mazloum Abdi announced a "freeze" on all operations against IS, fearing that its involvement in fighting Turkish forces would adversely affect its efforts to hunt IS cells, as well as in maintaining security in overcrowded detention centers and camps housing fighters. And their family members.