Sakine Cansiz, one of the three Kurdish women found slain in Paris on Thursday, was a co-founder of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and a former guerrilla for the organization that has waged an armed struggle against Turkey for nearly three decades.

A survivor of 12 years in a Turkish jail, she was one of a handful of prominent women in a movement regarded as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the European Union and the United States.

Interior Minister Marwan Charbel vowed on Thursday to negotiate the release of the kidnapped Lebanese pilgrims in Syria, reported Future television.

He made his pledge during a meeting he held with the families of the pilgrims, saying that he will head to Doha, Qatar in order to carry out the negotiations.

Turkey has been holding for several days a cargo plane en route from the United Arab Emirates to Iran after its crew refused to document its load, a customs ministry official told AFP on Wednesday.

"The plane owned by a Turkish company had to make an emergency landing at Istanbul's Sabiha Gokcen airport due to technical reasons," the official said on condition of anonymity.

The Turkish government and jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan have agreed on a roadmap to end a three-decade-old insurgency that has claimed tens of thousands of lives, Turkish media reported Wednesday.

The deal was reached during a new round of talks between Ankara and Ocalan and aims to have the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) lay down arms in March, private news network NTV and Radikal newspaper reported.

The Turkish army killed 14 rebels from the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) during an operation near the Iraqi border that also left one soldier dead, an official statement said Tuesday.

"A crowded group of terrorists were engaged after they were spotted preparing an attack against a border post on January 7," the governor's office in the southeastern city of Hakkari said in a statement.

Rescue workers in northern Turkey on Monday recovered the bodies of eight miners believed to have been killed in a methane gas explosion, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported, quoting an official.

Eight workers lost their lives buried in coal dust and one was recovered alive, said Mahmut Ozcelik, deputy director of Turkish coal mining firm TTK.

The Netherlands' Patriot missile batteries on Monday began their journey to fellow NATO member Turkey where they are to defend civilians near the border from a possible Syrian attack.

Around 160 vehicles carrying the missiles and equipment for 300 Dutch support troops left the Bestkazerne military base in Vredepeel in the southeastern Netherlands on Monday morning, an Agence France Presse correspondent reported.

Turkey's prospect of joining the European Union at the end of a lengthy process is not a certainty, Sweden's Foreign Minister Carl Bildt told Agence France Presse Sunday, saying efforts would have to be made by both Ankara and Brussels.

"Nothing is given in the world. Nothing is given in life," Bildt, a strong advocate of Turkey's EU bid, said in the western city of Izmir, a day after addressing Turkish ambassadors from around the world during an annual gathering.

The customs at the Rafic Hariri International Airport halted on Saturday an attempt to smuggle communication devices connected to satellite technology into Lebanon, the National News Agency reported.

“Three communication devices were discovered at the airport security check in the suitcase of a Syrian national,” the NNA explained, adding that Khalil S. was coming from Turkey via the Turkish Airlines.

Algeria and Turkey have decided to renew for 10 years from 2014 an agreement for Algeria to deliver four billion cubic meters of gas annually to Turkey, Energy Minister Youcef Yousfi said on Saturday.

The official APS news agency said it was "decided to extend the agreement by 10 years, with the possibility of increasing the volume of gas exported."