The United States has asked Turkey to extradite Osama bin Laden's son-in-law Sulaiman Abu Ghaith after his detention in Ankara last week, a Turkish newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Abu Gaith, the former spokesman of the al-Qaida terror network, was seized last week at a luxury hotel in Ankara after a tip-off from CIA, and is being held there by police, the Hurriyet newspaper said.

Turkey knew the U.S. embassy bomber had returned to the country after a stay abroad, Germany's interior minister said Tuesday, a day after Ankara accused Berlin of not doing enough to monitor suspected extremists.

"As far as I know, Turkish authorities as early as last year knew the fact that the man who bombed the U.S. embassy in Ankara entered Turkey illegally," Hans-Peter Friedrich told reporters during a visit to Istanbul.

The head of a pan-European rights body on Tuesday called on EU hopeful Turkey, which has more jailed journalists than any other country in the world, to improve its dismal record on freedom of expression.

"There are still 450 cases pending against Turkey in the freedom of expression" domain before the European Court of Human Rights, Council of Europe chief Thorbjorn Jagland told a conference in Ankara.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday slammed the European Union for "unforgivable" delays lasting over half a century in Turkey's path to possible EU membership.

"We have been standing before (the EU's) gate since 1959. The official accession talks started in 1963. Such delays are unforgivable," he said after meeting his Czech counterpart, Petr Necas, in Prague.

Turkish police have arrested 11 people over the murder of an American woman who disappeared while visiting Istanbul last month, police and the local media reported Sunday.

The body of 33-year-old Sarai Sierra, a mother of two, was found on Saturday near Istanbul's ancient city walls with fatal head wounds, the Radikal daily reported.

Interior Minister Marwan Charbel hoped that Prime Minister Najib Miqati's recent visit to Turkey would yield positive results in the case of the nine Lebanese pilgrims kidnapped in Syria, reported the Kuwaiti al-Seyassah daily Sunday.

He told the daily: “Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has joined the ongoing contacts to facilitate their release.”

The suicide bomber who blew himself up outside the U.S. embassy in Ankara was an ex-prisoner who suffered from a brain disorder triggered by going on hunger strike, local media and officials said Saturday.

Officials identified the bomber as Ecevit Sanli, 40, suspected to be a militant from an outlawed leftwing group that has recently faced a crackdown by the Turkish authorities.

John Kerry was sworn in Friday as America's secretary of state, less than two hours after Hillary Clinton swept out of office on a day marred by yet another attack on a U.S. diplomatic post.

Supreme Court judge Elena Kagan administered the oath of office to Kerry during a private ceremony on Capitol Hill. He was joined by his wife Teresa, daughter Vanessa, brother Cameron and his Senate staff.

The White House condemned a suicide bombing outside the U.S. embassy in Ankara on Friday as a "terrorist attack," but said it did not yet know who was behind it.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said "we strongly condemn" the attack, which killed a Turkish security guard and wounded several other people.

The Turk who shot pope John Paul II in St Peter's Square in 1981 claimed in a new book on Friday that the founder of the Iranian revolution, the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, told him to do it.

The Vatican immediately denied several assertions in the book including the claim by Mehmet Ali Agca that he had spoken of the Iranian link at his meeting with John Paul II in his prison cell.