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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said Kurdish fighters in Syria will either surrender their weapons or “be buried,” amid ongoing fighting between them and Turkey-backed Syrian fighters since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime this month.

“The separatist killers will either say goodbye to their weapons or be buried on Syrian soil with them,” Erdogan told lawmakers from his ruling AK party in parliament.

“We will destroy the terrorist organization that is trying to build a wall of blood between us and our Kurdish brothers,” he added.

Turkey views the Kurdish YPG forces – a major component of the US-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged an armed struggle against the Turkish state since 1984.

The PKK is designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union. Ankara has repeatedly called on its NATO ally Washington and other countries to stop supporting the YPG.

Earlier, Turkey’s Defense Ministry said its armed forces had killed 21 YPG-PKK fighters in northern Syria and Iraq.

In an interview with Reuters last week, SDF commander Mazloum Abdi acknowledged the presence of PKK fighters in Syria for the first time, saying they were helping in the fight against ISIS and would return home if a full ceasefire was reached with Turkey, a key demand of Ankara.

He denied any organizational links with the PKK.

Erdogan also said Turkey would soon open a consulate in Aleppo and added that Ankara expects an increase in the flow of people at its borders next summer when some of the millions of Syrian migrants in the country begin to return.

Cursor previously wrote that, according to media reports, Israel has prepared revenge on Erdogan.