Turkish Airlines said Friday a plane with 114 people aboard made an emergency landing after it was struck by lightning and one of its engines caught fire.

It said the plane, en route to Izmir from Istanbul, was preparing to land at Izmir when the lightning struck late Thursday.

Turkey's parliament passed a law late Thursday giving Kurds the right to use their own language in court, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported.

The right to give testimony in their mother tongue was one of the key demands raised by hundreds of prison inmates who went on a 68-day hunger strike that ended in November.

The authorities in Yemen have seized a shipment of assault rifles at the southern port of Aden that originated from Turkey, the second in the same month, state media reported on Friday.

Among the weapons discovered in a container were "115 T14 Turkish-made assault rifles," state news agency Saba quoted Aden customs chief Mohammed Zumam as saying.

NATO Patriot missiles deployed in Turkey to protect against a spillover of the conflict in neighboring Syria will be operational this weekend, a senior NATO officer said Wednesday.

"We expect to have an initial operating capability this weekend, that's what we're aiming at. This is when we will have the capability to defend some aspects of the population," said British Brigadier General Gary Deakin.

Kurdish organizations in France and Iraq on Wednesday claimed that the alleged killer of three female activists shot dead in Paris must have been a shadowy double agent working for Turkey.

Omer Guney, 30, was charged with the triple murder on Monday.

More than 650,000 people have fled the conflict in Syria, a top United Nations official said on Wednesday, as Turkey's foreign minister pledged Ankara would continue to accept refugees.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, U.N. aid chief Valerie Amos said the humanitarian situation in Syria was "already catastrophic and clearly getting worse".

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday his government was determined to settle the three-decade Kurdish conflict and would guarantee safe passage for rebels wishing to leave the country.

"If you are sincere and honest, you lay down your arms," Erdogan told his ruling party lawmakers in parliament, referring to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

A group of around 150 people gathered in front of the German embassy in Ankara on Tuesday, protesting against the deployment of Patriot missiles near the Syrian border.

Demonstrators chanted slogans, including "Germany, take your Patriots and get out of Turkey!"

Four batteries of Patriot missiles arrived in Turkey on Monday as part of a NATO mission to protect the Turkish border from any spillover of the conflict in neighboring Syria, a NATO source told AFP.

A ship carrying two German Patriot missile batteries anchored at the southwestern port of Iskenderun early Monday and its cargo was being unloaded, the source said on condition of anonymity.

Syria's opposition umbrella group met Sunday in a bid to name a prime minister-in-exile, a day after the Damascus government ruled out any calls for the ouster of Bashar Assad.

The diplomatic face-off came as a couple and their three children were killed in regime air strikes on a village in Damascus province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.