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Mike Pompeo has said US President Donald Trump is willing to use “kinetic or military action” against Turkey, the Evening Standard reported.

The US Secretary of State was speaking to US TV station CNBC about Turkey's assault on Kurds in northern Syria earlier this month.

Trump and the US at large has been criticised for pulling out of the area, with many believing they abandoned Kurds who had helped defeat ISIS.

Once the US started to pull out, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan ordered troops into the region.

A ceasefire has since been negotiated, but tensions are still high.

The US and Turkey are both members of NATO, an international military alliance that includes the UK.

Pompeo said on Monday: “We prefer peace to war. But in the event that kinetic action or military action is needed, you should know that president Trump is fully prepared to undertake that action.”

Turkey's nearly two-week offensive displaced some 300,000 people and led to 120 casualties among civilians. There were 470 among Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Force fighters, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Sunday.

Many members of ISIS that had been captured after the caliphate collapsed managed to escape their prisons once US resources were taken out of the region.

Turkey says 765 terrorists but no civilians have been killed in its offensive.