Phalange Party leader Amin Gemayel warned on Friday of forces in the Arab world that may seek to impose new dictatorships in the region.

He noted the existence of “dormant dictator cells” in the Arab world that are being protected by totalitarian regimes.

At least 26 Kurdish rebels and a Turkish soldier have been killed in Ankara's latest operation against Kurdish separatists in the country's southeast, Anatolia news agency reported Friday.

Local security officials earlier said 18 rebels and a Turkish soldier had died.

The Turkish military has launched a major air and ground operation against Kurdish rebels after a spike of deadly attacks in the southeast, local sources said on Thursday.

Thousands of ground troops, police forces and village guards are involved in the operation that started late Wednesday in the mountainous areas of Kato, Lale and Merinos in Sirnak province near the Iraqi border, sources told Agence France Presse.

Twenty-four people drowned on Thursday after a boat carrying illegal immigrants trying to reach Europe capsized in waters off western Turkey, the Anatolia news agency reported, citing a local official.

"The number of casualties recovered from the boat also carrying women and children rose to 24," said Ardahan Totuk, acting governor of Izmir province.

Twenty-five soldiers were killed and four were lightly wounded in an explosion at a military ammunition storage in western Turkey, the army announced on Thursday.

The explosion occurred around 1815 GMT late Wednesday at the depot where hand grenades were stored and its cause was not yet known, said the chief of staff in a statement posted on its website.

Twenty-four pieces of golden jewelry, uncovered at the ancient city of Troy and kept in a Pennsylvania museum were returned to Turkey on September 1, local media reported on Wednesday.

"Only such an event could make an excavation team leader or a culture minister as happy as I am now," Ertugrul Gunay, culture and tourism minister was quoted as saying by daily Milliyet.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday that Syria had become a "terrorist state" carrying out massacres against its own people.

"The regime in Syria has become a terrorist state," Erdogan told his ruling AKP meeting in Ankara. "Syria is not an ordinary country to us. We do not have the luxury to remain indifferent to what's happening there."

CIA chief David Petraeus is visiting Turkey for meetings on regional issues, a U.S. official told Agence France Presse on Monday.

The official would not say with whom the CIA chief would be meeting and where.

The success of a new international peace envoy to Syria depends on states such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar and not on Syria, a Syrian minister told reporters in Damascus on Monday.

"The success of Lakhdar Brahimi does not depend on Syria," said Information Minister Omran al-Zoabi.

Kurdish rebels armed with machine-guns and rocket launchers attacked a security complex in southeastern Turkey overnight, triggering fierce fighting that left about 30 people dead, local sources said Monday.

Ten soldiers were killed and seven wounded in the attack in the province of Sirnak, the local government said, while other local sources said about 20 members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) were also killed.