Turkey's new constitution will reduce the political influence of the once-powerful military in order to steer the EU-hopeful country more on the path of democracy, a parliamentary source said Friday.

The army, considered the self-appointed guardian of Turkish secularism, has intervened in politics since 1960 and has staged four coups. Since coming to power in 2002, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government has taken steps to curb the power of the military.

Just like the centuries-old coffee tradition, the nargileh, or water pipe, is a mainstay of Turkish culture but authorities are clamping down on this ancient social ritual that health experts say is as harmful to health as smoking regular cigarettes.

Fans of the water pipe, also known as a hookah or shisha, can no longer get their fix in cafes, bars, and restaurants after a law banning smoking from closed public spaces came into force in January.

Qatar is ready to pay a $5 million ransom to free the Lebanese pilgrims, who were kidnapped in Syria on May 22, unnamed sources told An-Nahar daily Friday.

General Security chief Abbas Ibrahim is following up closely on the controversial file and has met with President Michel Suleiman three times in ten days after his visit to Qatar and Turkey in January.

The onshore 3-D seismic scan process is expected to remain until September as the British Spectrum Company, which will conduct it, will cover the expenses estimated to reach $25 million, a local newspaper reported on Friday.

As Safir newspaper quoted a ministerial source as saying that the British firm will pay Lebanon a share of the profits achieved by the survey.

Turkey sent jets across its border with Iraq to strike separatists from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a local military source said Thursday.

The jets bombed 12 targets in the Kandil Mountains in the autonomous Kurdistan region of Iraq on Wednesday, the source told Agence France Presse without providing any casualty figures.

The Turkish government has given permission for a group of Kurdish lawmakers to visit jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan as part of renewed peace talks, their party said Thursday.

The justice ministry approved a list of deputies from the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) to visit Ocalan in his island prison on Saturday, it added.

Turkey on Thursday accused the international community of failing to honor financial pledges made last month to help Syrian refugees who have fled their war-ravaged country.

International donors at a Kuwait conference on January 30 pledged almost $1 billion (759 million euros) in aid to countries hosting stricken Syrians.

Chancellor Angela Merkel will embark on a two-day visit to Turkey starting Sunday, her spokesman said, taking with her a delegation of German business chiefs and visiting German troops.

On February 24, Merkel will visit German military stationed in the southeastern city of Kahramanmaras, Steffen Seibert told a regular government briefing here.

A Turkish court released on Tuesday 10 pro-Kurdish politicians who were among hundreds, possibly thousands of people on trial accused of ties to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

The court in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir freed the politicians on the grounds that the time they spent in custody had now exceeded any prison term they would serve if convicted, court sources told Agence France Presse.

More than four million people inside Syria are in desperate need of aid, up sharply from 2.5 million in September, the UN's humanitarian agency said Tuesday.

"We are watching a humanitarian tragedy unfold before our eyes," Valerie Amos, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, told reporters in Geneva.