"Despite all the legitimate security interests Turkey has, it is unacceptable what is happening in Afrin, where thousands and thousands of civilians are being persecuted, dying or forced to flee," she told parliament. "We also condemn that in the strongest terms."

The People's Protection Units (YPG), a Kurdish group, was driven out of Afrin on Sunday, one the cantons in the self-proclaimed autonomous administration run by Syria's Kurds.

In a wide-ranging speech on her new government's priorities, Merkel offered a full-throated defense of her decision to let in more than one million asylum seekers since 2015, many of them from war-ravaged Syria.

She said the conflict required a "political" solution as well as a humanitarian response and warned that the current offensives were exacerbating the already desperate situation for the civilian population there.

Reporter’s code: 50101