President Michel Suleiman asked Turkey on Tuesday to exert more efforts in releasing Lebanese pilgrims kidnapped in Syria's Aleppo province since last May, the state-run National News Agency reported.

Suleiman's request came during talks with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on the sidelines of the Arab League summit in Doha.

Turkey's government is planning to establish a consultative body to oversee the ongoing peace negotiations with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the prime minister said on Tuesday.

"If we decide on forming a group of wise people... it will be our consultative committee," Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told his lawmakers in a parliamentary meeting.

Israel and Turkey began talks Monday on compensation for the families of victims of a deadly 2010 flotilla raid, for which the Jewish state apologized last week, ending a near three-year diplomatic rift.

"Officials delegated by the two sides will work on the compensation issue. We gave the kickstart for it today," Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc told reporters after a weekly cabinet meeting.

Five Turkish fighter jets staged surveillance flights on Monday over Kurdish rebel camps in northern Iraq, a military source told Agence France Presse.

The F-16s took off from their base in Kurdish-majority Diyarbakir province and flew over outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) camps in northern Iraq, the source added.

Arab nations and Turkey, helped by the CIA, have dramatically increased military aid to Syrian rebels in recent months, The New York Times reported Monday.

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency was helping their efforts, the newspaper added, citing air traffic data and interviews with unnamed officials and the rebel commanders.

Israel and Turkey have "a thousand reasons" to be on friendly terms again following an air-clearing apology over the deaths of nine Turks in a 2010 raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla, Israeli President Shimon Peres said on Turkish television Sunday.

"I can think of a thousand reasons why Turkey and Israel should be friends; I cannot find one reason why they shouldn't be friends," Peres said in an interview with CNN Turk.

Israel and Turkey's recent rapprochement is a vital factor in developing peace and stability in the Middle East, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said.

U.S. President Barack Obama brokered the tentative reconciliation between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday during his visit to Israel.

The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) will only pull its fighters out of Turkey once it sees concrete steps from Ankara following the outlawed group's ceasefire, a top rebel commander said Saturday.

Murat Karayilan made the warning in a video message in which he said the PKK was officially proclaiming the ceasefire which jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan called for on Thursday.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced Saturday he would visit the Palestinian territories in the next month, a day after a breakthrough apology from Israel for the deaths of nine Turks during a raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla.

"It is possible that I will visit Gaza and the West Bank during the course of this month or the next," state news agency Anatolia quoted Erdogan as telling journalists during a train trip to western Turkey.

U.S. President Barack Obama strolled among the ancient Jordanian ruins at Petra on Saturday, on the final leg of a four-day Middle East tour dominated by his embrace of Israel.

Obama flew by helicopter to view the rose-colored stone ruins of the ancient Nabataean city, after winds from a sandstorm abated and allowed him to make the 55-minute trip across the plains and mountains of Jordan.