Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Wednesday bowed to pressure to increase refugee numbers in the face of the Middle East crisis and confirmed Canberra will also join U.S.-led air strikes on the Islamic State group in Syria.

With his hardline against asylum-seekers under intense scrutiny given the drama unfolding in Europe, Abbott said the government was acting "with our head as well as with our heart" to help the thousands of migrants fleeing the conflict.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday vowed not to abandon the country to "terrorists" after deadly attacks by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). 

"We did not and will not abandon the nation's future to three or five terrorists," Erdogan said in a speech in Ankara, after 30 Turkish soldiers and police were killed in two separate attacks carried out by the Kurdish militants over the last three days.

The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) on Tuesday released 20 Turkish citizens, including customs officials, kidnapped in August by the militants in the east of Turkey and then moved to Iraq, officials said.

The PKK handed the 20 over to a delegation consisting of human rights activists, Iraqi Kurdistan officials and members of Turkey's pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP) who traveled to Iraq, security sources in eastern Turkey told Agence France Presse.

Turkish special forces crossed into northern Iraq to pursue Kurdish militants on Tuesday, a senior official told AFP, after the deadliest attacks by the rebels on the security forces in years left dozens dead.

Fourteen Turkish police were killed Tuesday in a new attack by Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants as violence in the east of the country threatened to spiral out of control.

Supporters of Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) on Sunday stormed the headquarters of the Hurriyet newspaper in Istanbul after accusing the daily of misquoting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the publication said.

A group of 150 people chanting slogans supporting the AKP pelted the offices of Hurriyet in Istanbul's Bagcilar district with rocks, knocking out windows and the front door. 

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Sunday criticized the "ridiculously small" share of refugees the EU is accepting, labeling the continent the "Christian fortress Europe."

Turkey had taken more than two million people alone from war-torn Syria and Iraq, creating "a buffer zone between the chaos and Europe," Davutoglu wrote for Monday's edition of Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung daily.

Several Turkish soldiers were killed on Sunday in a major attack in southeastern Hakkari province suspected to have been carried out by Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants, reports said.

There was no immediate official casualty toll but in a sign of the gravity of the situation Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu broke off a trip to Konya to watch a national football game and summoned an emergency security meeting in Ankara, the reports added.

A Turkish police officer who was pictured picking up the lifeless body of three-year-old Syrian refugee Aylan Kurdi -- whose death pricked the world's conscience -- said he thought of his own son when he saw the toddler on the beach. 

Speaking to Turkey's Dogan news agency, Mehmet Ciplak recounted how he prayed the little boy was still alive as he walked towards him and scooped him up from the water's edge. 

Two Turkish police were killed on Sunday in an attack in the country's southeast blamed on the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), security sources told Agence France Presse.

The attack is latest deadly strike on the security forces blamed on the PKK since the Turkish government began a major "anti-terrorist" campaign against the Kurdish militants in July.

The father of a drowned Syrian toddler whose fate shocked the world returned home Friday to bury his family as European ministers tried to thrash out differences on binding refugee quotas to ease the crisis.

Britain said it would take thousands more from refugee camps on the Syrian border as the heartbreaking images of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi's lifeless body on a Turkish beach ramped up pressure on political leaders to act.