Violence between security forces and Kurdish rebels in southeastern Turkey killed one police officer and eight rebels, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported Monday.

The outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) launched five simultaneous attacks against security positions late Sunday, killing one police officer, the agency quoted the Sirnak governor's office as saying.

Turkish artillery struck back on Monday after a shell fired from neighboring Syria ploughed into Turkish territory without causing any casualties, the state-run news agency reported.

The shell struck near the village of Besaslan in southern Hatay province amid escalating clashes between Syrian loyalist troops and rebels in the Syrian town of Haram, just across the border, Anatolia said.

A Turkish humanitarian relief group has published a picture of a Turkish journalist who went missing in Syria in August and is believed to be held by the government.

Cameraman Cuneyt Unal and his Jordanian colleague Bashar Fahmi, who were working for U.S. broadcaster al-Hurra, disappeared in the northern city of Aleppo on August 20.

The United States has not deployed any military personnel or units in Turkey in connection with the crisis in Syria, the Turkish army said in a statement Saturday.

The headquarters of the Turkish armed forces denied press reports that U.S. military personnel had been sent to the country following increasing tension along its border with Syria.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will hold talks next week with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on bilateral ties and the crisis in Syria, her spokesman said here on Friday.

Erdogan will arrive in Berlin Tuesday to open a new Turkish embassy building with Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and his German counterpart Guido Westerwelle.

Army Intelligence succeeded in arresting suspects on charges of belonging to the al-Qaida terrorist organization, reported al-Joumhouria newspaper on Thursday.

Security sources told the daily that the army arrested Malaysian nationals Rafik Mohammed Aaref and Mohammed Razin Shaaban on charges of being members of the organization.

A narrow majority of Turks is opposed to any intervention by their country in Syria if President Bashar Assad's regime falls, according to a poll published on Tuesday.

Fifty-one percent of people surveyed believe that Turkey, which shares a long border with Syria, must "remain impartial without favoring any side" in the Syrian crisis, according to the Edam Center survey.

Six members of Turkish security forces and three Kurdish rebels were killed in renewed clashes in Turkey's southeast, security officials and local authorities said Saturday.

Three special police force members and three militants from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) were killed when the rebels ambushed a patrol on a highway late Friday in Hakkari province, according to security sources.

Turkish authorities have no concerns that the reconnaissance drone sent by Hizbullah into Israel's airspace early in October would trigger a war between the two countries, As Safir daily reported Saturday.

Unnamed Turkish sources said it is unlikely for similar incidents to trigger war between Israel and Lebanon because “neither Israel or Hizbullah nor any international party finds an interest in war currently. Similar incidents should be isolated in order to maintain stability.”

Turkey on Friday called for Syria's regime to immediately stop deadly aerial bombing of rebel targets and for the two sides to observe a truce ahead of the Eid al-Adha Muslim holiday next week.

"It is particularly important that the Syrian regime immediately stop and without conditions, the recent attacks against the population with planes and helicopters," Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told reporters in Ankara.