Senior political leader Aldar Xelil said the Kurds would accept the deployment of UN forces along the separation line between Kurdish fighters and Turkish troops to ward off a threatened offensive, according to AFP.

"Other choices are unacceptable as they infringe on the sovereignty of Syria and the sovereignty of our autonomous region," Xelil told AFP.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday that Ankara would set up a "security zone" in northern Syria suggested by US President Donald Trump.

Erdogan's comments came a day after he had a telephone conversation with Trump to ease tensions after the US leader threatened to "devastate" the Turkish economy if Ankara attacks Kurdish forces in Syria.

Turkey has welcomed Washington's planned withdrawal of some 2,000 US troops from Syria but the future of US-backed Kurdish forces labeled terrorists by Ankara has poisoned ties between the NATO allies.

The Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) have been the key US ally in the fight against the IS, taking heavy losses in a campaign now nearing its conclusion, with the militants confined to an ever-shrinking enclave of just 15 square kilometers.

Erdogan said he had a "quite positive" telephone conversation with Trump late on Monday where he reaffirmed that "a 30-kilometer security zone along the Syrian border... will be set up by us."

The Syrian Kurdish leader said he regretted the US proposal to give Turkey control over the mooted "security zone."

"Sadly, Trump wants to implement these safe regions through cooperation with Turkey. But any role for Turkey will upset the balance and the region will not be safe," Xelil said.

"On the contrary, Turkey is a party [to the dispute] and any party cannot guarantee security."

The last offensive saw Turkish troops and their Syrian rebel allies overrun the Kurdish enclave of Afrin in the northwest, one of several the Kurds had governed since 2012.

Critics have accused Turkish troops and their proxies of the military occupation of Syrian sovereign territory.

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