Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Syrian refugees on Sunday that victory over the "tyrant" President Bashar Assad was at hand.

"I can see it clearly that the help of God is near," Erdogan said in televised remarks at Turkey's Akcakale refugee camp in the southeastern city of Sanliurfa.

Two Syrian air force generals have defected from the regime of President Bashar Assad and joined opposition forces in Turkey, a diplomat said on Friday.

The generals, commanders of the Regional Air Force, have crossed the border and arrived in the town of Reylanli in southern Turkey, the Turkish diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity.

More than 1,000 Syrians crossed into Turkey in the last 24 hours after the Syrian regime attacked a bakery in the town of Halfeya, a Turkish foreign ministry official said on Wednesday.

"1,100 Syrians mostly women and children fled to Turkey in the last 24 hours through a border crossing in the town of Reyhanli," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Turkey will keep buying natural gas from neighboring Iran as Western allies raise pressure over Tehran's disputed nuclear program, Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said on Wednesday.

"It is out of question for us to take a step backward," Yildiz was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency. "Furthermore, we have not been asked to take such a step."

Turkey will provide neighboring Syria with electricity if asked but the deteriorating situation there makes such a move unlikely, the energy minister said on Wednesday.

"We'll give electricity to Syria if they want," Taner Yildiz was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency.

Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour stressed on Wednesday that Turkey is not behind the abduction of Lebanese pilgrims in Syria, a day after the families of the men held a sit-in near the Baabda Palace to demand President Michel Suleiman and the government to resolve the case.

"Turkey isn't responsible for the kidnapping of the men in Syria," Mansour said in comments to Voice of Lebanon radio (100.5).

President Michel Suleiman criticized on Tuesday the boycott of the national dialogue, hoping that all political powers would attend the session set for January 7.

Suleiman said: “I do not understand the link between boycotting dialogue and the demand to topple the government.”

The Turkish Embassy in Lebanon urged on Monday its citizens to be careful and take caution, after the families of the abducted pilgrims in Aazaz threatened to target Turkey's interests in the country.

"We urge the Turkish citizens to refrain from traveling to the country,” the embassy said in a statement to the state-run Anadolu Agency.

Turkey has agreed to drop its ban on cooperating with Israel as a third-country NATO partner, a diplomat said Sunday.

Ankara cut off such cooperation after the Israeli army raided a Turkish ship carrying humanitarian aid to the blockaded Gaza Strip in 2010, leaving nine Turks dead.

The families of the Lebanese pilgrims held in Syria staged on Sunday a sit-in in front of the Turkish Embassy in Lebanon to protest the failure to resolve the case of their loved ones.

They vowed in a statement to “take escalatory measures against Turkish interests in Lebanon at the beginning of the new year.”