The Turkish military has ordered the dishonorable discharge of a soldier who was briefly abducted in January by Islamic State (IS) militants after he went missing on the border with Syria, media reported on Friday.

Ozgur Ors, a non-commissioned officer, went missing during an army operation against smugglers but then was rescued by a mission coordinated by Turkey's spy agency.

The Islamic State group killed 164 civilians in its offensive on the Kurdish town of Kobane, in what a monitor Friday called one of the jihadists' "worst massacres" in Syria.

The killing spree, which took place mostly inside Kobane itself, was widely seen as vengeance for a series of defeats inflicted on the jihadists by Kurdish militia in recent weeks.

Already stung by accusations that his presidential palace in Ankara is a megalomaniac folly, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is facing new claims of wasteful extravagance.

But this time the controversy does not surround a grand new building but a humble table set for the traditional fast-breaking iftar meal for the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

German federal prosecutors have said they have filed terrorism charges against four men, among them three Lebanese, on allegations they supported an ultraconservative Syrian rebel organization, Ahrar al-Sham.

Prosecutors said Thursday that Lebanese nationals Kassem El R., 32 and Hassan A.S., 29, German Nuran B., 49, and Ali F., 30, who has dual Lebanese-German citizenship, have been charged with supporting a foreign terrorist organization.

Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) on Wednesday nominated its veteran former leader Deniz Baykal for the post of parliament speaker after elections in which the ruling party failed to win an overall majority.

The election of the speaker next week will be a major moment in the seismic changes in Turkish politics following the June 7 elections which led the way for a coalition government for the first time since the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002.

Turkey on Wednesday said it was holding talks with Israel over a deal to reconcile the two former allies following a deadly Israeli commando raid on a Turkish aid vessel bound for Gaza.

"It's quite normal for the two countries to talk for the normalization of the ties. How can reconciliation be achieved without holding any meetings?" Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters in Ankara.

A French court on Tuesday threw out a case brought by a mother trying to sue the government for failing to stop her teenage son from leaving to join jihadists in Syria.

The boy was 16 when he left with three others from the town of Nice in southern France in December 2013, taking a plane to Turkey and then traveling overland to Syria. 

A prominent Turkish sculptor risks over four years in prison on charges of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after being locked in a dispute with the Turkish strongman over one of his works.

In March, a court found Erdogan guilty of insulting Mehmet Aksoy for calling the artist's "Monument of Humanity" -- created to promote reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia -- a "monstrosity".

Six Syrian migrants were killed and dozens more rescued on Tuesday when their overloaded boat capsized off Turkey's Aegean coast while on its way to Greece, the Dogan news agency reported.

The migrants were seeking to reach the Greek island of Kos and enter the European Union when their boat hit trouble in stormy weather before dawn on Tuesday after leaving the Turkish resort of Bodrum.

Syrian Kurds and allied rebels advanced against the Islamic State group on Tuesday, capturing a strategic town a day after seizing a base from the jihadists near their Raqa bastion.

A spokesman for the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and a Britain-based monitor said anti-IS forces took Ain Issa after capturing the nearby Brigade 93 base overnight.