Turkish and Israeli officials will meet on Monday in Israel for another round of talks over compensation for a deadly 2010 raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, a diplomatic source told Agence France Presse.

"The second round of negotiations will be held in Israel tomorrow," the source said on Sunday, without elaborating.

Acting defense minister Saadun al-Dulaimi on Sunday accused Turkey of controlling Sunni anti-government protests in Shiite-majority Iraq, saying the demonstrations are a haven for "terrorists and killers."

"There are foreign agendas controlling these sites," Dulaimi said of the protests.

Lebanese pilgrims, who have been held hostage in Syria since May last year, appeared on a videotape broadcast by two television stations on Saturday and Sunday, as their families warned that they "do not want to see any Turk" in Lebanon after May 22 should Turkey fail to secure the release of their loved ones.

The men were seen talking in the footage but the accompanying audio was inaudible when the video was broadcast by al-Jazeera satellite TV station on Saturday.

The families of the pilgrims held in Syria's Aazaz area staged a sit-in near the Turkish Pegasus Airlines in Beirut on Saturday to protest the ongoing abduction of their loved ones, reported the National News Agency.

The protesters prevented the airlines staff from heading to their offices located near the Bourj al-Murr area.

Japan and Turkey on Friday signed a long-awaited deal to build a sprawling nuclear power plant on Turkey's Black Sea coast, a milestone for the Japanese nuclear industry as it recovers from the 2011 Fukushima disaster.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan hailed the $22 billion contract as a "very important step" that would transform bilateral relations with Japan into a "strategic partnership."

When a landmine blew Syrian rebel Jamil Lala's foot off, he expected to be relegated to a non-combat role far behind the front lines and away from his comrades.

Instead he learned to walk on a prosthetic limb and headed to the front to be closer to his men.

Five Turkish security officers and two civilians were wounded on Thursday after Syrians trying to cross over into Turkey randomly opened fired in a border buffer-zone, officials said.

"It started as a minor stone-and-stick clash when our security forces warned Syrians," who were trying to cross the common border in large numbers, said Abdulhakim Ayhan, mayor of the border town of Akcakale.

A Japanese-French consortium has won a $22 billion dollar contract to build a nuclear power plant on Turkey's Black Sea coast, a senior energy ministry official said on Thursday.

"An inter-governmental agreement is expected to be signed between the prime ministers of both countries on Friday," the official told Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity.

Turkish riot police used water canon and tear gas on Wednesday in a bid to disperse hundreds of protesters who defied a Labor Day ban on demonstrations in a central part of Istanbul.

The ban was imposed to avoid trouble during renovation work taking place at the symbolic Taksim square, a traditional rallying point.

Activists said Tuesday that at least 15 opposition fighters have been killed in a battle with Syrian government troops for a military helicopter base in the country's north.

The Britain-based Observatory for Human Rights said fighting between rebels and President Bashar Assad's troops is raging around the Mannagh base in the northern province of Aleppo.