The Ras al-Ain branch of the Kurdish National Council in Syria called on the Syrian opposition on Saturday to intervene over an ongoing jihadist assault on the northern city located on the Turkish border.

"Since Wednesday morning, some armed groups have launched an offensive against innocent and unarmed civilians in Ras al-Ain using various types of heavy weapons and sowing fear and panic among children and women," a statement said.

Turkish police have arrested 13 suspects accused of plotting an attack against members of a Protestant church and their pastor in a northwestern city, a local official said on Friday.

"The suspects who were arrested by the counter-terrorism units on Tuesday are accused of plotting an attack on the members of the Christian community and their leader" in the city of Izmit, the official told Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity.

Turkish police launched a major nationwide crackdown on Friday against a banned left-wing group, arresting 85 people, among them 15 attorneys, local media reported.

The dawn raids in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir and other cities targeted the Revolutionary People's Liberation Front (DHKP-C), a Marxist group held responsible for several acts of terror in Turkey since the late 1970s.

Interior Minister Marwan Charbel and General Security chief Abbas Ibrahim completed on Thursday a visit to Qatar where they held talks on the case of nine abducted Lebanese pilgrims held in Syria.

Charbel announced at the end of the talks that Qatar appointed a security official to follow up on the issue with Ibrahim's supervision.

Turkey and France have agreed to resume talks on civilian nuclear energy at a time Ankara plans to build three plants within the next five years, French Foreign Trade Minister Nicole Bricq said on Wednesday.

"We met the (energy) minister to discuss Turkey's important projects in nuclear facilities," said Bricq after a meeting with Energy Minister Taner Yildiz. "France claims excellence in this field...so it is only natural that we have these discussions."

Turkish jets struck more than 50 Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq where members of the outlawed separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) are based, military sources said Wednesday.

"Sixteen F-16 fighter jets took off from their base in Diyarbakir in the southeast at around 20:00 GMT Tuesday and bombed the (rebel) targets in Qandil mountain in northern Iraq, 90 kilometers from the border," military sources said.

Interior Minister Marwan Charbel and General Security chief Brig. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim held “positive” talks with senior Qatari officials over the case of abducted Lebanese pilgrims in Syria's Aleppo province, local newspapers reported on Wednesday.

The two officials tackled with Qatari officials the efforts that their country can exert to free the nine remaining men.

Canada will resettle up to 5,000 mostly Iraqi and Iranian refugees now in Turkey, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced Tuesday.

"With escalating violence in the region, more people are seeking protection in Turkey, and our commitment to resettle 5,000 mostly Iraqi and Iranian refugees in Canada will help Turkey deal with this growing pressure," Kenney said in a statement.

The jailed leader of Turkey's Kurdish rebels, Abdullah Ocalan, can watch television in prison for the first time since he was incarcerated 14 years ago, a Turkish official said Tuesday.

"There is no special broadcast, he has access to the same channels the other cells have," Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin told reporters.

Turkish military planes struck rebel targets in northern Iraq in a bid to rout separatists from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), security sources said Tuesday.

"A total of 18 targets were fired at on Monday in the northern Iraqi regions of Zap and Metina" in Iraqi Kurdistan, said a source in southeastern Turkey, on the border with Iraq.