Around one hundred protesters turned out Friday for a rally in a conservative Istanbul district to support the two brothers who gunned down 12 people in an attack on French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.

Responding to an appeal by a group calling itself the Fraternal Platform of the Prophet's Companions, the demonstrators held up a banner with the pictures of Cherif and Said Kouachi as well as the late al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has invited his Armenian counterpart to attend commemoration ceremonies in Turkey marking the 100th anniversary of the World War I Gallipoli campaign this year, officials said Friday.

In a surprise move, Erdogan has sent invitation letters to more than 100 leaders, including U.S. President Barack Obama and the Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian, to participate in the Gallipoli centenary on April 24, two Turkish officials contacted by AFP confirmed.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday said he would soon re-name his controversial new presidential palace, adopting the name of the complexes surrounding imperial mosques.

Erdogan said in a speech in Ankara that the Presidential Palace would in future be known as the Presidential Kulliye and will contain a mosque, convention center and a gigantic new national library.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday lashed out at Charlie Hebdo for its "provocative" publications about Islam, saying the French satirical weekly incited hatred and racism.

"This magazine (is) notorious for its provocative publications about Muslims, about Christians, about everyone," Erdogan told a meeting of businessmen in Ankara.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has invited his Armenian counterpart, Serzh Sarkisian, to attend commemoration ceremonies in Turkey marking the 100th anniversary of the World War I Gallipoli campaign this year, a report said Friday.

In a surprise move, Erdogan has sent invitation letters to more than 100 leaders, including U.S. President Barack Obama and the Armenian president, to participate in the Gallipoli centenary on April 23-24, the Hurriyet newspaper reported.

U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Derek Plumbly advised the Lebanese at the end of his mission to Beirut to remain united and preserve Lebanon.

Plumbly, who will be succeeded by the head of the U.N. mission to rid Syria of chemical weapons, Sigrid Kaag, told An Nahar newspaper that his last words to the Lebanese are “to remain united and preserve this precious country.”

Several Christian youth who hail from the northern coastal city of Tripoli have reportedly converted to Islam and pledged allegiance to the al-Qaida-affiliate al-Nusra Front similar to Elie al-Warraq, who was detained by the military intelligence.

Al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Friday that al-Warraq, 22, who resides in Tripoli and hails from the northern district of Akkar, converted to extremist Islam and pledged allegiance to al-Nusra Front similar to other youth in the northern city.

Turkey has suspended five prosecutors working on a contentious investigation into an alleged delivery of arms for Syrian  rebels that was intercepted on the border last year, media reports said Thursday.

The top Turkish judicial committee said the decision was taken so as not to hamper the inquiry or tarnish the reputation of the judiciary, the official Anatolia news agency reported.

Turkish prosecutors on Thursday opened an investigation into two commentators writing for daily newspaper Cumhuriyet who illustrated their columns with the controversial Prophet Mohammed cartoon published by Charlie Hebdo.

The prosecutors were investigating Cumhuriyet columnists Ceyda Karan and Hikmet Cetinkaya on suspicion of "inciting public hatred and insulting religious values", the official Anatolia news agency reported.

Thousands of mourners on Thursday buried a 12-year-old Kurdish boy who activists say was killed by Turkish security forces, a claim vehemently denied by the government.

Witnesses told AFP that Nihat Kazanhan, 12, was shot while police were patrolling the largely Kurdish Cizre district of Sirnak province near the Iraqi border, where tensions between locals and security forces are high.