Turkey on Thursday accused neighboring Armenia of using "disproportionate force" after a shepherd was shot dead by Armenian soldiers patrolling the sealed border, local media reported.

Governor Eyup Tepe said there had been similar incidents in the past and chided Yerevan for using "disproportionate force," in remarks carried by the private Dogan News Agency.

Turkish riot police on Wednesday fired tear gas and water cannon to disperse hundreds of anti-government protesters at Istanbul's Taksim square, the epicenter of violent demonstrations which rocked the country in June.

At least four people were injured, eye witnesses said, after police stepped in to break up a crowd of around 500 protesters clustered at the square.

Kurdish rebels have demanded that the Turkish government take steps to advance the fragile peace process by September or face unspecified action, a pro-Kurdish news agency reported on Wednesday.

"A step must be taken. September 1 is the deadline," Cemil Bayik, the new hawkish leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), was quoted as saying by Firat news agency.

At least 24 people drowned early Wednesday after a boat carrying illegal immigrants trying to reach Europe capsized off western Turkey, local media reported.

The boat's captain told the coastguard at 02:00 am local time (2300 GMT): "We are sinking. There are 30 people in the boat," before contact was cut off, according to the private Dogan news agency.

The regime's new victory in Homs and rebel advances in the north and south of Syria are signs that both sides are looking to make headway before much-touted peace talks.

"Having consolidated its victory in Homs, the regime controls all the area stretching from Damascus to the coast," says analyst Karim Bitar of the French Institute of International and Strategic Relations.

A gun battle that erupted between two families in southeastern Turkey over disputed land has left eight people dead, the Dogan news agency reported Sunday.

The rival families from the villages of Baskoy and Karatepe, in a Kurdish area near Diyarbakir, clashed on Saturday after the meal that breaks the dawn-to-dusk fast during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan.

The head of the main Syrian Kurdish party said Sunday that Turkey had changed its position and would provide the Kurds in the war-ravaged country with humanitarian aid.

"A promise has been made. Turkey is going to help our people in all areas. That is to say it will provide humanitarian aid," said Saleh Muslim, co-president of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), in an interview published Sunday in the Turkish daily Milliyet.

A suicide car bomb attack struck a Turkish embassy annex in Mogadishu Saturday, killing a Turkish guard and a Somali bystander, witnesses and officials said.

"One of our policemen from the special forces tasked with protecting the embassy annex targeted in the attack has unfortunately died," the Turkish foreign ministry said in a statement.

Jailed Turkish Kurd leader Abdullah Ocalan has demanded his retrial under legal reforms that took effect in April, one of his lawyers said Saturday.

"These reforms pave the way for a new trial for all those convicted who could not be retried under the old law," Rezan Sarica told Agence France Presse.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned against any plans for an autonomous Kurdish region in northern Syria as officials met the leader of the war-torn country's main Kurdish group Friday.

Turkish government officials held talks with Saleh Muslim, the leader of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) which is seen as the Syrian branch of Turkey's banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).