Talks aimed at ending a 40-year-old militant conflict have fostered peace hopes in Turkey but the precarious situation of Kurdish forces in Syria and uncertainty about Ankara's intentions have left many Kurds anxious about the path ahead.

A key dam in northern Syria has become a flash point in the conflict between Kurdish forces and Turkish-backed armed groups.

Battles between Turkish-backed groups, supported by air strikes, and Kurdish-led forces killed 37 people on Thursday in Syria's northern Manbij region, a war monitor said.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Friday that the new Syrian administration should be given an opportunity to address the presence of Kurdish militants in the country, and reiterated that the Turkish military would act if it did not.

Turkish-backed forces are intensifying attacks on Kurdish-controlled areas, targeting civilians and critical infrastructure as fears grow over a potential dam collapse.

Turkey threatened Tuesday to launch a military operation against Kurdish forces in Syria unless they accepted Ankara's conditions for a "bloodless" transition after the fall of strongman president Bashar al-Assad.

Since the ousting of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad last month by rebels, some of whom Turkey supported, Ankara has demanded that the YPG disband, its non-Syrian militants and foreign terrorist fighters leave Syria, or be repatriated to their source countries, and its leaders turn themselves in.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported on Sunday that 85 Turkey-backed fighters and 16 fighters from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were killed in the fighting, which began on Friday evening in several villages near the city of Manbij.

Turkey is “reviewing and rethinking” its military and civilian presence in northern Syria following the fall of the Assad regime last month and the ascent of new authorities led by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al Sham,